Customer Reviews

Harnessed the Storm

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

 

 

Drexciya is one of a number of groups and artists who are pushing "pure techno" forward in a time where the clubs are ruled by more commercial trance and house.

This is some really fantastic techno/electro. It's one of those albums where every sound is necessary and vital. There's no fluff here, and no pointless plugin exercises. The warm, organic synth tones that are Detroit hallmarks are in wonderful abundance- but they're mutated, filtered through "dimensional waves" as Drexciya themselves explain. Whatever techniques they use, this music is cutting-edge (but miles away from the laptop claustrophobia of the clicks and cuts scene) while remaining true to the original spirit of Detroit techno.

The undersea, high-tech vibe isn't simply a gimmick, it _is_ Drexciya. Give this disc a try and you'll understand. The music really sounds like something coming from some advanced civilization beneath the sea. Burbling, neoprene washes of aquatic noise pass through electro-funk beats constructed of some as-yet unknown materials. The graceful, percolating synths navigate through murky depths like sonar pings. You could easily get lost in these sounds.

Drexciya:enigmatic aquatic masters of Motor City electro/techno. This album definitely draws it's tough, but warm sound palette from the now classic sounds of Kraftwerk, Afrika Bambatta, and The Belleville Three(Detroit techno pioneers Derrick May, Juan Atkins, and Kevin Saunderson). However these warm, resonant Roland tones are shaped and arranged, into tight, innovative rhythmic constructions, augmented by the "warm pads" string emulations that give Detroit techno it's distinctive combination of moody emotion and Alvin Toffler/Fritz Lang-informed futurism. Subtle reverb, tones that seem to receed into a murky background, and crystalline shimmering effects successfully embody Drexciya's undersea themes within the fabric of the music itself, rather than simply layering "aquatic" signifiers over a musical backdrop, as a less subtle artist would be tempted to do. When people talk about "warmth" in electronic music, they are often referring to samples and loops of recognizable, comfortingly familiar acoustic instruments that gloss over the intrinsic beauty of pure electronics. Detroit's finest and certain segments of their European progeny have spent the last 15-odd years creating emotional, human music with the visceral, immanent tones of misused analog gear and modified sine tones as the basic material, often working below the radar of a scene focused on slick club trends and cookie-cutter sampledelia. Along with artists such as Jeff Mills, Stacey Pullen, Underground Resistance, Surgeon, Monolake, Sean Deason, Fluxion, John Tejada, and others, Drexciya are dedicated to exploring the still-fertile ground of pure techno and it's ability to continually mutate while maintaining a focus on rhythm, intra-compositional relations of push/pull and spatiality, and emotion articulated THROUGH structure rather than draped over it. "Harnessed The Storm" is a fine example of tight, kinetic beat design with a shimmering corona of effusive feeling.

I have actually heard music that comes from advanced undersea civilizations (I'm an anthropology major, which should explain quite a bit) and, not surprisingly, it sounds exactly like this album. Uncanny.

Talented Dexciya is a talented - while clearly standing in the legacy of Detroit Tresor minimal techno-house, this somehow manages to emerge from the faceless mass of the many releases - partially, it might be due to the consistent undersea narrative that ties the tracks together like a concept album (the tracks themselves don't really share a lot of material btw) - but it is also that all the different elements these tracks are composed from are little forms of art in themselves, deceptively simple yet instantly classic - very often I felt like I heard it a thousand times but then realize that Drexciya just found a way of making it sound like that.
I bet he spent a lot of time optimizing them and boiling things down to their most minimal appearance - moving in a similar direction that made e.g. the classic Kraftwerk albums so timeless.
While the "stories" implied in the titles evoke poetic undersea situations, each track finds its own area of mostly analog electronic tastebuds to stimulate, and all tracks are working perfectly without knowing what the title wants us to imagine.
With this music, sometimes you have to wait for the next track for something really new to happen, but that's why it runs between 2-4 am in the morning. :)

Drexciya returns with another album of underwater Detroit electro, Harnessed the Storm. As always, the production values are outstanding -- the synths are well-modulated, the percussion exact. Here, as on other albums, they seem to favor a staticky, bubbly hi-hat, which only adds to the whole underwater feel. "Digital Tsunami" has the force of a storm, while "Dr. Blowfins' Black Storm Stabilizing Sphere" sounds exactly like the name describes. "Lake Haze" goes for a more straightforward electro feel (one of the few tracks that could make its way onto the dancefloor), but atmosphere -- or should I say liquisphere? -- is the order of the day. Dive on in. The water's fine.

Ole. Our hero is fixated with acqua y este ready for noua aventura subacqua. Cu laptop personal se imbarca ala recherché de la pepita musicala en board de submarine veiculo longo. Ole.
Noi avem dat trei stars pe reson d'etre ca cinqo stars e reservat pe genial persona y creativa.