Customer Reviews

These Hopeful Machines (Amazon MP3 Exclusive Version)

5 star:		(86)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

A few years back, I did a review of BT's "Movement In Still Life", an album that changed the way I looked at dance music. After the decent, yet stutter-step that was Emotional Technology, and the beautiful, yet too ambient for my taste "This Binary Universe", today I am happy to return to Amazon to say that BT's latest offering, "These Hopeful Machines", is an album that once again changes the way I look at dance music, a double-album where I don't even care what the names of each song are or where the skip button is located, because it flows so beautifully well.

Forget your radio-cheese pop or your repetitive club-dance music. THIS is the future right here. Brian Transeau is so ahead of his time that it's ridiculous. This is not a person who goes loop-nuts with synths and drum machines, or relies lazily on his computer to do all the work for him. This album has been composed with TLC and it shows. You can truly feel BT's vision come to life, almost as if every minute detail was meticulously planned and executed precisely according to his vision. Nothing feels "thrown in" for the sake of it, and even at 2 hours long, you'll still be hearing new effects and tricks. Of course, it doesn't hurt that the music is very melodic, uplifting and fresh throughout. THIS is what feel-good music should be, and I feel truly priveleged to have seen a glimpse of the future of music. Hopefully the next generation will see the impact BT has left on electronic music as a whole, because as it's always stood, IMO, the man just does not get nearly enough credit in this oversaturated industry. Marvelous album - thank you, BT!

... because it means no other artist or album after this will ever live up to my expectations again.

I didn't think he could do it ... after four years, I thought BT had gone to live in a hermitage somewhere to contemplate the wonderful accomplishments of his life, but it turns out, he was working on this album. I feel a little ashamed to be calling this an "album" ... it's not an album, it's an experience. It encompasses everything music should encompass. It's orchestral, lyrical, celebratory ... it's about love, heartache, inner peace, and every other emotion you could possibly imagine. It's tough to explain exactly what I feel when I listen to BT, because his music envelops all of your senses in a bubble of cosmic waves and euphoria. BT's music DOES something to your brain waves and the world just seems a little bit clearer. 'These Hopeful Machines' is no exception to that.

Protip: Don't listen to this album (or really, any of Brian's music) on your laptop speakers. The music should truly be experienced in all of its glory ... use a good pair of headphones or stereo speakers.

Brian delivered some amazing electronic albums in the late 90s and in the early 2000s. Then, in 2003, Emotional Technology, Movement in Still Life and This Binary Universe took a new approach to electronic music and the clubs didn't quite soak it up.

For good reason. Personally, I think those albums are fantastic but they were experimental, new and broke out of the traditional trance mold.

As I attended BT's shows and started hearing singles from the upcoming album, These Hopeful Machines, it was clear that Brian was bringing things back to basics but I wasn't quite sure how he would deliver...

These Hopeful Machines is a new era in electronic music. Brian has taken every phenomenal aspect of his entire catalog and applied it to this album.

1. The vocals, pop appeal and ballad level lyrics that we love in the album, Emotional Technology
2. The stutter edit effects that made up This Binary Universe
3. The build up and release that we danced to on IMA and ESCM.
4. The guitar and "live" feeling that Movement in Still Life" gave us

Brian took these aspects and modernized it all for this new decade and its the perfect dance album for 2010!

My favorite tracks: (in order)
Suddenly
Emergency
A Million Stars
The Unbreakable

Brian also teamed up with some amazing DJs to deliver fantastic remixes that you can buy as a seperate digital album on iTunes.

BT hit a home run! I've listened to the album 6 times today and will listen to it 20 more times before the week is over. I'm in love and will have a hard time going back to his old albums because everything I loved about those records are in These Hopeful Machines.

(Since theres so many fanboy raves, heres a balanced review:)

BT has woven an album that is probably his most mature yet. This feels more complete than any of the others. It's amazing but not perfect.

[[[(Constructive Criticism): It seems more effort was put into the production and sounds rather than the music itself (ok, some of the timings are intricate, but the chord structures & melodies/harmonies are nothing 'wow'). The music itself isn't groundbreaking - it's a mish-mash of popular music styles you've heard before - it's the production tricks that stand out. Some of the songs are literally over-produced. Where the album tries to 'rock out' it gets hindered by sounding too technical and sterile. The obsession with micro-managed notes, perfect pitch and granularity means little musically to the soul. BT still hasn't learned that sometimes 'less is more' and that if there was more imperfect substance we wouldn't need so much perfect filler. If the songs seem a bit disjointed, well, they are - theres too much 'icing' and not enough 'cake' at times. The album suffers a bit of an identity crisis with it's hired singers and rock/pop/emo/retro/techno/new age/dance songs often lasting 10 minutes a song. This made it feel more like a project. This is where it lacked a producer(s) to step in and 'trim the fat' and make it more focused and tight.(end of constructive criticism)]]]

HOWEVER, when compared with 90% of what is out there - this stands as a work of art. It does have emotion and technically it's VERY exciting to listen to. I expected a lot from this album and with 2 discs, a few great & memorable songs, countless amazing production techniques, superbly produced and mastered - it didn't dissapoint. BT is maturing as an artist as well as a 'technologist'. I look forward to joining him in future adventures in music - the guy just loves what he does and it shows. If you are a fan of music for music's sake - You owe it to yourself to listen to this album. It's great - just not mind-blowing like the fanboys are saying.

Oh, and BUY THE CD! Why pay for an inferior sounding mp3 when you can have the higher quality CD ?!?

Some of this will grow on me, I expect. Unquestionably my favorite tracks are "Rose of Jericho" and "Le Nocturne de Lumière". Unfortunately, a lot of the rest reminds me of "Solar Plexus", my least favorite track on ESCM.

And for those of you who would like to split the monolithic MP3s into track-size chunks, here are useful MP3-frame cut-points:

Disc 1
1. Suddenly: 0 - 18620
2. The Emergency: 18621 - 43053
3. Every Other Way: 43054 - 69197
4. The Light In Things: 69198 - 93969
5. Rose Of Jericho: 93970 - 11736
6. Forget Me: 11737 - end

Disc 2
1. A Million Stars: 0 - 28559
2. Love Can Kill You: 28560 - 40886
3. Always: 40887 - 55112
4. Le Nocturne de Lumière: 55113 - 81863
5. The Unbreakable: 81864 - 105816
6. The Ghost In You: 105817 - end

I used a Macintosh shareware tool called "MP3 Trimmer" to do my splitting. There's probably something similar available for Windows.

Let's start this review off with a large mea culpa: I've never listened to a BT album start to finish. I knew of BT's influence on electronica but always felt the majority of his tunes (apart from Flaming June) were pretension masquerading as art. 'These Hopeful Machines' bears some of those fears out with five completely mediocre religious rock pseudo-trance tracks in Unbreakable, Ghost in You, Suddenly, Love Can Kill You and Always. I know that is being awfully dismissive of half this double-disc but these tracks are just a cacophony of lazy chord structures, heavy-handed vocals and played-out rock tropes. Boiler-plate beats and copious amounts of saccharine lyrics do not help blend genres as well as BT intended. Probably a back of the hand compliment to say but Suddenly's bombastic opening slightly redeems an otherwise egregiously poor set of five tracks. Snarky question: do the words 'pray' and 'love' make up 80% of BT's lyrical vernacular? It's a good thing then that the rest of 'These Hopeful Machines' is so game-changing and phenomenal. Those superlatives may seem sacrosanct compared to what I just wrote but the other seven tracks feel like they were produced by a different person.

For example, Side B's Nocturne De Lumiere. It is basically the Avatar of music in so much as it does things technically that no musician has ever tried and succeeded at before. BT, like Cameron had to create his own equipment just to achieve the complexity he desired for this track. Lumiere is layered better than an Eskimo; there are little noises I am just now discovering in my 50th playthrough. There are fleeting moments in the track that just make you stop and think: "How the **** did he do that?" It's not hyperbole to say that Lumiere sounds like a track produced by aliens. For this song alone, BT has revolutionized electronica music and has made regular trance music feel shallow, repetitive and downright amateurish, in comparison. Between the anachronistic song structure, incredible morphing breakdowns and remarkably innovative sounds, Le Nocturne de Lumiere is in a word: aural bliss. A track that I hope people will look back to and say "Enough with these ubiquitous drum and bass lines already, give me some complexity in my music, damnit!"

Aside from Rose of Jericho (basically Nocturne's A-side), the other five tracks are an eclectic mix of vocal trance. For the most part, the differences between each of the other five tracks are fairly granular. Each track successfully blends pop with trance and contains infectious lyrics along with incredibly memorable beats. A Million Stars' vocals are truly haunting, The Light of Things is a track that I wish Tiesto was still producing, The Emergency is a club-banger with a tear-jerking finish, Forget Me's star is BT's daughter whose melodic singing over chimes and the rainforest are simply heartbreaking and Every Other Way is your typical trance tune without the usual cheese. It's hard to juxtapose and compare these five fantastic vocal-heavy tracks to the other five; I'll only say that I prefer the ambient-electronica blends over the rock-trance ones and that these five stayed with me while the others faded away. It makes me crestfallen to think that we'll have to wait another 3-4 years for the next BT joint. Let's hope this isn't the last refuge of a true visionary but the start of a real revolution in electronic music.

BT has done it again with his latest, amazing work of sonic architecture. These Hopeful Machines demonstrates BT's uncanny ability to mix beautiful songwriting with advanced production techniques, and all at the highest sonic quality. Everything this man does from start to finish is done with absolute painstaking perfection and it shows!! Most inspiring is his exploration of mathmatical concept and custom-made algorhythms and instruments, all woven into a tapestry a what we all recognize as great melodies, harmonies, progressions, forms...all the products of classical music which he knows so well.

Buy the album and expect a journey. Like life, you will find These Hopeful Machines moving through waves of hope and joy. Expect meaningful pauses adjascent to moments that remind you that this sort of experience is worth every penny.

These Hopeful Machines heralds a new benchmark for quality and sophistication in commercially-viable electronic music. BT, perhaps more so than any popular artist I can think of, consistently produces music that is excellent in every regard. The standard of quality he maintains; the level of his artistry is remarkable. The amount of work he puts into each project is immense, and his dedication is beyond admirable. Every album he has released possesses a distinct identity, and every subsequent album evolves substantially from its predecessor while maintaining stylistic cohesion. BT's music is instantly recognizable as his. I can think of few other artists in the genre that own their music so strongly. He maintains his distinct style in spite of, or perhaps because of the diversity of his musical influences, which have become more apparent with each album. His music is not a patchwork of other artists' ideas, or if it is, then a single piece of that patchwork is microscopic. I'm making a lot of generalizations in what is supposed to be a review of a single record, not an analysis of a career. But I make these comments because they are relevant to this particular album. I think you need to be familiar with his previous work to understand just how brilliant this new album is, though familiarity is not a prerequisite for appreciation. These Hopeful Machines (hereafter referred to as THM) feels like a culmination. It seems as if all of his previous work was developmental, and we are just now witnessing the unveiling, the flowering of his potential (note the album cover). I'm not implying that all his previous work is underdeveloped. Rather, that in the light of this new work, his previous albums are essential developmental stages. They have a strong interconnectedness: a sequential progression of composition, artistic identity and production technique.

Regarding the product itself: the production is flawless. The mixing is outstanding, and I am referring here to the multi-track mix to stereo, not the continuous mix from one song to the next, though that too is exceptional. The quality of this mix rivals the best professionally produced pop and rock recordings. Each sound occupies its own space within the soundstage and every sound is highly resolved. The sense of space in the mix, of depth, is very well-defined, and objects are acutely formed. The sound layering is solidly maintained by the greatly considered level-balancing. Overlapping sounds never compete with each other, at least not in any unintentional way: a common result of clumsy engineering. The mix will often be comprised of a multitude of layers and elements resulting in a full and complex sonic environment, yet nothing ever seems superfluous. Acoustic and electronic sounds mingle with ease, blurring the boundary between the two. As should be expected in the best electronic music, everything is absolutely deliberate.

BT's technical proficiency matches his compositional expertise, and you can't really talk about one without discussing the other. The mixing and sound editing, the production, is as much a part of BT's composition as the sequence of notes. It wouldn't be a BT record without those stutter-edits, and they are frequently yet judiciously employed with preposterous skill. Not that this isn't the case with his previous albums, but I find the stutter-edit breakdown sections of THM to be highly melodic despite their bewilderingly complex rhythms. Ever since Movement in Still Life we have heard music trying to emulate those edits, but no one does it like BT.
Music, at its core, is a manipulation of time. BT takes a short sound, a brief moment of time, be it a vocal snippet or a percussive strike, and cuts it up into as many pieces as the limits of human perception will allow, or his artistic expression desires. Then he arranges those tiny segments in a variety of patterns and sequences for us to perceive that brief moment of time in abstract and unexpected ways. It's like a microscope for the ear (and ultimately your perception of time). While you are listening to these stutter-edit passages it's as though you are being held, but never quite frozen within a narrow span of time. He moves you back and forth and focuses in and out, revealing intricacies of that captured moment that can't be otherwise perceived. And then sometimes, after we've witnessed this moment from a satisfying variety of temporal angles and directions, he will slow time down by decreasing the length of the edits and increasing the number of edits per second into a crescendo of time and sound. A stunning example of this is the incredible build and peak in `The Emergency', assembled from a sample of the word "you" in the line, "Today, is the day, that I love you." The crescendo peaks as we have reached the moment of maximum perceptible resolution for that brief captured period. "You" has splintered and warped beyond recognition. Tension reaches a zenith and just before he releases the hold there is a quick flurry of glitches as though a computer is being snagged at the tail-end of reboot. Finally, mercifully (and I mean that in the best possible way), time resumes the established pace, we reenter the atmosphere and come beautifully crashing back into the song.
BT will usually have multiple edit tracks playing simultaneously (it probably would not be inaccurate to label every track an edit track, but I am referring to the tracks dedicated to the stutter-edits). They skitter and cross over each other, dancing in playful, counterpoint rhythms as they leap across the stereo field. The pan automation/sequencing in THM is spectacular. The edit samples are often jumping and morphing so quickly that your brain doesn't have time to fully analyze their configuration before it has changed. Thus you are chasing after the sounds and their micro-patterns, appreciating them after they have left. These patterns are sometimes so rapid they hover on the verge of perceptibility, but BT keeps them from ever becoming just incomprehensible noise. This is where his skill as a composer compliments his technical acumen. His musical intuition has the last word. These marvels of programming are never there just to awe you. They always have a compositional purpose, obeying BT's advanced musical logic.

BT's musical logic, his songwriting theory, is unassailable. This feat is especially impressive considering the general complexity of the songs. These are pop songs (with the possible exceptions of Rose of Jericho and Le Nocturne de Lumière, the closest any tracks come to pure progressive trance, though even they have melodic refrains that recur similarly to the primary melody of a pop song), yet they are long, running from around five minutes to over twelve minutes in length. Even the longest songs preserve their core pop structure throughout. Everything is expanded (what might be an 8-measure bridge in a pop song becomes a minute-plus trance interlude) and thoroughly explored, yet the rules are not broken. Verse, chorus, bridge, intro and outro, key changes, etc- all of these pop song components can be identified and occur exactly when they should. The brilliance of this cannot be overstated. BT has always demonstrated masterful understanding of pop song composition, and it is certainly one reason why he has broad appeal. Even still he doesn't neglect the trance crowd. His credibility within the club/dance scene will undoubtedly continue. And while you can't please everyone, BT comes close, and most impressively, never seems to be compromising in the process.

An interesting mix of guest vocalists is on display in THM, along with BT himself, whose voice has matured nicely. This is an album designed to feature vocals, and if you don't like vocal-based trance then you probably won't enjoy THM. There are instrumental intermissions and the compositionally exquisite instrumental tracks `Rose of Jericho' and `Le Nocturne de Lumière' (of all songs in THM, Nocturne feels most like something from This Binary Universe). The rest of the time we are asked to engage with the human voice. Additionally there are a lot of male vocals, especially on the more somber `B side', which could further put off some. Still, I think BT has struck a fine balance between male and female vocal tracks, and gives plenty of breather with the instrumental sections. A preponderance of one sex in vocal trance can be wearisome, and while the vocals in a couple of THM's songs venture into slightly eccentric territory, I don't feel the album ever comes close to derailing because of it. The `B-Side' of THM is initially less accessible and features Rob Dickinson in two tracks. Though the B-Side is the "comedown" side of the two, it still has plenty of triumphant energy, Dickinson's tracks being among the more powerful. The B-Side is nicely grounded by the impossibly delicate, angelic voice of Kirsty Hawkshaw in the epic opening track, A Million Stars. All the vocals in THM possess plenty of charismatic personality. Nobody sounds like Mr. or Ms. Generic Trance Vocalist. That may be the ultimate artistic success of THM, and what keeps it consistently riveting throughout its entire play time.

I can understand if someone would not enjoy this album because the core intent, the message or philosophy, doesn't resonate with them. Maybe you don't believe in love, or you only think of love as something clinical and biological. You are decided that all love songs are artificial sentimentality. That is a valid perspective and it could make it difficult to fully enjoy this album. I find the unabashed emotion of These Hopeful Machines to be refreshing, when so much of electronic music (and for me this is not a negative thing) is very rigid and sterile, striving only for sensory stimulation and hypnotization. This is not to say that BT's music isn't designed to effect a hypnotic state in the mind of the listener- hardly. His music functions on an extremely refined mathematical, indeed scientific level. And that makes it all the more incredible that he is able to convey deeply personal feelings, and engage the listener so intimately. Perhaps it speaks to a fundamental truth of the structure of the human mind. Even if every aspect of our existence is physical, that does not invalidate emotion or lessen its worth. THM addresses our intellectual and primal aspects simultaneously. It is an absurdly ambitious creation, but BT's talent makes it possible.

The appetite for entertainment has become increasingly voracious in our fledgling Information Age. It's rare that an album comes along that demands multiple listens. There is so much else clamoring for your attention, it seems nearly impossible to avoid distraction. Yet here BT has crafted something that cannot be denied, something that commands attention and implores analysis and promises to fully reveal itself only after you have invested substantial time and effort. I know I certainly haven't perceived its entirety, though I've listened to it many times uninterrupted. Is it ridiculous to describe an album in this way? Probably, but with THM it seems appropriate. It encourages you and invites you to discover. It is warm and welcoming and at the same time vast nearly beyond description. It is mysterious and often I feel like I am catching ephemeral hints of concepts I will never understand. I wonder if BT himself has a total conscious understanding of what he has created, if he is not possessed by a creative force, and when he has completed his work if he sits back and marvels at it incredulously.

Don't think the lack of specific criticism in this review is due to blind fanaticism on my part, that I automatically assume everything BT does is great. No, the lack of criticism is really because I do not find anything negative about the album to criticize. This is a great album, and if you have the slightest interest in electronic music you should check it out. If you like it, buy it. Let's support the artists that help make life more interesting, so that they will thrive and continue to entertain, challenge and thrill us for as long as they wish- doubly so for electronic music which is woefully underappreciated.

Long Live the Beats,
Mind Layer

I've been a massive fan of BT's for years and own everything he's produced. He never fails to disappoint and THM is no exception, it's an amazing and stunning album. BT has said this is the best work he's ever done and I can hear why. For my money there's no better electronic music producer than Brian. The attention to detail, the melodies, the lyrics & voices, the complexity and all the subtle nuances all merge to produce an album that's outstanding.

This is total listening pleasure and something to completely immerse yourself in. I really can't rate this album highly enough. I like my music to be a journey and this is one hell of a ride from start to finish. 12 tracks and nearly 2 hours of musical nirvana. We've waited 4 years for this album and it's been well worth the wait and then some. Unique, vibrant, subtle, beautiful, exhilarating, emotional and uplifting - there just aren't enough adjectives to describe this wonderful piece of music. With more accuracy than a Rolex, this album has been crafted with meticulous precision.

If you've never heard BT's music than grab this album and plunge right in, the water's lovely! And if you have, then what are you waiting for - this is up there with the best of years gone by.

No 30 second music clip could ever do this album justice - the complexity of each track, the way they progress and the evolution of every song can only be felt by absorbing the whole piece. By all means have a sneaky peek but nothing could possibly compare to engrossing yourself in the whole album from start to finish - enjoy.

Quite possibly the most 'complete' album I own (and I have a few!) this has, however, left me with a quandary; how on earth will any other music compare to it's genre-crossing inventiveness and scrupulous production. Guess I'll just have to wait for the next BT masterpiece!

Keep doing what you do best BT, you're an oasis in a desert of unoriginality. You're light shines brighter than any other and with this album you've done yourself incredibly proud.

Simply exceptional.

I have been following BT for a number of years and find each one of his works to be original and inspiring. This album continues the tradition with a mature mix of classic trance sound mixed with a modern and fresh sound. BT gives you several dance/pop tracks and then throws in a hard hitting trance track. This formula is repeated on both sides of the album.

Le Nocturne de Lumiere is a track you are either going to love or hate. I personally think it is a great track and shows his roots. This song has a progressive flavor that is inspired by previous works from "This Binary Universe" and older trance classics like "ECSM".

BT continues to move this genre forward with an album that sounds like it is made by a true professional. Let's hope that Blank and Jones doesn't rip this album off again! In this genre there tends to be a few key innovators and a lot of imitators.

Pros:
--Positive vibe to the whole album.
--Smooth blending between songs
--Beats that make you want to get up and move.
--BT's great sensibility for mixing real acoustic instruments with electronic instruments. ("A Million Stars" 10:15)
--Lush textures and soundscapes
--Mature sensibilities
--Top notch vocalist line up.
--The Ghost in you is truly a tear jerker.

Cons:
--Male vocal harmony starting at 6:45 on "A Million Stars" grind on me. The part sounds over processed and somehow feels discordant.
--Some songs could have used a little more melody
--A little too much enthusiasm for the stutter.
--"Love Can Kill You". This is a hard driving rock song in the chorus and is very upbeat. Many parts of this track sound great but I have a hard time with BT's vocals on this one. the oh,oh,oh,oh and the overall sound tend toward sounding like a boy Band.

I imagine this will be the more conservative album release which will be followed by a more experimental release. This seems to be his past pattern. I remember hearing BT comment about a technique that he described called "Metric Convolution". Le Nocturne De Lumierge showcases this concept around 6:43.

Overall this is likely to be the best electronic release in 2010 with little to no real competition. BT is the master and we are harder on his releases than that of the others. I suppose this is because we expect more given the caliber of all of his releases. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this to others.