Customer Reviews

Freefloater

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Since having purchased this disc some time ago, I have yet to find anything in this genre that has such rhythmic depth and melodic inventiveness. There is a definitive down-tempo, i.e. chilled, and somewhat industrial sound that often unfolds into otherworldly and ethereal warmth. It is most definitely not of the frenetic, angsty, Global Underground persuasion. If you like electronica, particularly ambient dub/ambient groove (William Orbit, Sounds from the Ground, Irresistible Force) this could well be your cup of tea.

From beggining to end, this recording never fails to please the ears. Funky rythms and deep beats flow under the electronic pops and swells from another demension. If Richard D. James (Aphex Twin) was actually sane, this is what might come out. Highly recommended.

Well, I bought this CD because of a local Internet radio station I listen to while at work (SomaFM). Originally attracted to this group based on simply listening to the track "Skank," I've now had the CD a couple of weeks and have come to appreciate it in its entirety... it's great for just putting on as good background music when you want some "noise" but still need to be able to concentrate. This CD certainly helps quiet all the other noise in my head well-enough to make concentrating on tough pieces of code at work that-much-easier.

This cd is thoroughly enjoyable. It makes your head dance. Truly "intelligent dance music" in the ambient-dub environment, crisscross beats and funny little sounds, lush, enveloping and like bouncing in a lower gravity environment. If massages were this good we'd have no knots...

Ambient Dub fanatics like myself should not give this CD a miss. This album and Colourform are probably the best two CD's of The Higher Intelligence Agency. However, many people who have given these CD's a less than favorable review are determining that their sound is too repetitious, and in many cases either all sounds too much alike, or the tracks themselves are just not varying enough with the track. I can see how some people can come to this conclusion. If you don't have a lot of music like this, than it just seems that you are playing this CD too much and letting yourself get bored with it too quickly. Even I don't care to sit through the entire playback of just the one CD. But, I have determined that this music from HIA should be played within a mix of other Ambient Dub and other various glitch and IDM related electronica. To just play these 9 songs end to end can get dull quickly. But if you listen to these songs mixed in with about another hundred IDM instrumentals than you will truly appreciate HIA's participation in the overall bigger picture of today's electronic instrumentals. Today's IDM.

I have these two HIA CD's shuffling in my 200 CD carrousel. These tracks by HIA are being mixed up with tracks by Autechre, Gescom, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Pete Namlook, Biosphere, The Orb, Phutureprimitive, Sounds From the Ground, Electric Skychurch, Plaid, Boards of Canada, and various other similar artists of which The Higher Intelligence Agency belongs with.

I also have these songs and other IDM and Ambient Dub tracks burned onto ATRAC CDR's that is made through the SonicStage program made available only by Sony. (Check out some of Sony's ATRAC CD players and find out why burning hours of your favorite tunes onto a single CDR is better than just loading an ipod with mp3s) Burning hard copies is definitely better than just floating your music in a temporary storage unit like an ipod. (You can make 32 hour CDR's, and as many as you want from all your CD's and mp3s. How many songs can your single ipod hold?)

Anyway, Kudos to you for discovering The Higher Intelligence Agency, but now, explore some of the other artists I've mentioned above. You will love this new world of sound that you've discovered. It is more vast than you could ever imagine.

Regretfully this CD is doomed by its repetitiveness that suggests to me misdirection or lack of artistic understanding necessary to make it interesting and appealingly varied. It is one loop after another and another which, after a minute or so becomes deadly boring unfortunately. As a musician I have committed this error myself and know the pitfalls of "loops" if they are used at too great a length or lack variation. I wish H.I.A. well and hope that their next album is better conceptualized.

Regretfully this CD is doomed by its repetitiveness that suggests to me misdirection or lack of artistic understanding necessary to make it interesting and appealingly varied. It is one loop after another and another which, after a minute or so becomes deadly boring unfortunately. As a musician I have committed this error myself and know the pitfalls of "loops" if they are used at too great a length or lack variation. I wish H.I.A. well and hope that their next album is better conceptualized.