Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis

Nudge | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 24, 2003)
• Original Release Date: 2003
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Tigerbeat6
• ASIN: B0000996H6
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #646,065 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

On their Tigerbeat6 debut, Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis, Nudge build on the sound of Trick Doubt and flesh out a sound that falls somewhere in between electronic pop and more experimental fare. While the album's pretty, cerebral pieces are more muted than a good portion of the label's edgy output, the playful instinct to push and pull and cut and paste sounds into near-oblivion that defines Tigerbeat6 is still there; it's just expressed more subtly. The overall effect is more evocative than immediate, suggesting all kinds of vivid imagery without spelling it out explicitly. If satellites could sing, they might sound like "Til the Sun Expands," a quietly lovely track that strews lilting, arrythmic melodies over fractured beats. "Love-In Accident" sounds exactly like its title, sporting a funky rhythm occasionally interrupted by spasms of fuzzed-out guitar and hippie flutes. Most of the rest of Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis follows the patterns of these two songs, offering either pretty, appealingly misshapen reveries or rhythmic abrasiveness. Both approaches work well, but occasionally the results feel a little dry and coldly experimental, and the cut-and-pasted parts don't always add up to a satisfying whole. The hazy murmurs, static, squiggles, and squelches of "Blue Screen" are hypnotic but tend to meander, a problem that also slightly mars "Mouthed," a dreamy track that suggests a more unstructured take on the sound Stereolab pursued on their later albums. More often than not, though, Nudge's music yields some enjoyable paradoxes: "Poor Impulse Control," one of the most chopped-up songs, is both jerky and funky, while the slinky "Search Party" is driven by a bassline that's equally dark and whimsical. And at times, Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis offers glimpses into what Nudge might deliver more consistently in the future: the abstractly seductive "3hit" is one of the album's smaller but more effective instrumentals, while "Multiply by What Remains" casts vocalist Honey Owens as a brooding femme fatale singing in an underground spy hideout. Perhaps fortunately, Nudge save the best for last: despite its punny title, "Are Our Hours" is the most expressive thing on Elaborate Devices -- it's something of a wonder that the group can make a song with warm, rounded bass, brass, and guitars a rhythm that seems to be made of pounding and scraping and dripping water sound so emotive. While Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis doesn't always rise above its origins as cerebral exercises in sound, the tracks that hint at some soul behind their music suggest even better things from this group. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars amiable, clever, sultry., December 9, 2004

By 

leo (Beijing, China) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Elaborate Devices for Filtering Crisis (Audio CD)

nice introspective tones surround tricky rhythm programming with cascading guitars, saxophones and soothing vocals on a track or 2. alternating between gentle melancholy and soothing grooves, this album rewards your brain with complexity, pleasures your ears with intuitive arrangements and an organic sense of "song writing". at a time when IDM has its head stuck up its own bung-hole, and most electronic fused "Post Rock" becomes a set of cliches faster than you can yawn, this is actually really good.