Customer Reviews

Corymb

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
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I should have been!!! It's a gorgeous masterpiece. I've been rocking this all week. The songs are so chill and pretty. There's only one track I don't absolutely love... I forget the number at the moment but it's in the second half. Beats too disjointed, kind of noisy, but still very enjoyable (odd to say, but true). The rest of the record is absolutely breathtaking. I haven't heard a lot of BB's solo stuff, just this remix record... usually remix records suck. Not in this case. Not at all. Boom Bip is so underrated... it's no surprise to me that no one else has reviewed this yet. I'll sign off by saying- pick it up. It's only $13. Worth every penny. The layers and pretty guitar work in 98% of the tracks are worth the admission price alone. Masterpiece.

Corymb is Boom Bip's adjunct to Seed to Sun, and its opening track, "From Left to Right" has the same feel of abstract hip-hop that marked that album (albeit it with a touch more electric guitar). But a good part of CORYMB consists of remixes. Several of the remixers are simpatico with Boom Bip's own sensibilities: cLOUDDEAD take the abstraction of "Closed Shoulders" one step further, into near ambience, while Lali Puna put the rhythm front and center on their mix of "Awaiting an Accident." Others, like Venetian Snares, do their own thing -- "The Unthinkable" becomes a frenzied drum 'n' bass, for instance, while Four Tet bring a jazzy double bass to "Third Stream." Mogwai make "The Use of Unacceptable Colors in Nature" into the sonic equivalent of watching a sunset over a mountain lake. The Boards of Canada, similarly, give a The Campfire Headphase-era remix to "Last Walk Around Mirror Lake," making it even more dreamy than before. The remainder of this album are tracks from a live Peel Session, but here "First Walk" has a more rhythmic quality than its album counterpart. A dreamy continuation.

Intriguing, though only in a background context, the synthesized electronica walks a fine line between experimental engagement and plodding arrangement. At best, a slick programming almost disguises the majority of b-rate material when utilizing the most instrumental of samples to create more then a disengaged beat procedural, demonstrated in a few later tracks sublime intentions over the opening's limited range. Of course being a remix album, tracks can vary drastically in quality from one to the next, but throughout Corymb many of electronic music's popular underground acts maintain an overall consistency in paying tribute to Boom Bip. On average though, most songs are not worth the purchase unless you are a fan of this group or a hardcore electronic completionist.