Customer Reviews

Kitchen

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

 

 

I first heard Sun Electric 5 years ago at Carbon in NYC where they played backup for The Orb. It was an unusual atmosphere; everyone seemed to be waiting for something to "happen". ... Sun Electric was playing some of the most ear-pleasing electronia I had heard in quite a while.

I thought to myself, "Wow, these guys seem to know exactly what they're doing". Maybe they did, maybe they were just doing a show. I was totally transfixed by the sounds Sun Electric was making that night, it was just beautiful. Then they left the stage. Oh well. The Orb came out and did their zillionth rendition of "Little Fluffy Clouds" and I had to leave, they sounded so terrible.

Back in 1996 I had heard rumors of Sun Electric's "Kitchen" being a good "techno" album. Here in the USA it was impossible to get, so I gave up trying to find it. Just last month I happened to see it here at Amazon and ordered it. It's everything I expected. It's great. Sun Electric has a sound that is not exactly recognizable. One might say it's almost invisible. The sounds are so well crafted it's almost as though they are tasted and not heard.

If you're looking for dance music I guess there's some of that here. Lord knows Sun Electric has been played at the clubs enough already. "Kitchen" is a concept album in some ways. The listener is treated to some quiet pieces once in a while, and that makes the later sounds more impactful. This is a great CD for doing things, it's inventive, engaging and busy.

Stop reading this and order the CD now. This disk along with Juno Reactor's Bible of Dreams, Plastikman's Artfakts, Moby's Everything is Wrong, Underworld's Second toughest on the Infants, The Future Sounds of London's Dead Citys, and Die Warzau's Engine are constantly being played in my house. If you ask me, this CD is the crown jewel of my collection. Just enough beat to wind you into a frenzy and then a perfectly timed mellow song to let you catch your breath. Then it throws you back into the fray once more. A perfect disk to put in for one of those sleepless nights. Enjoy.

Way back in 1990 I was a techno dj and I blindly bought a record called "O'Locco" by Sun Electric. It turned out to be one of my most favorite plays...it was just a bunch of different iterations of "O'Locco" all blended together and the entire thing was sheer bliss to listen to.

"Beauty O'Locco" doesn't approach the brilliance of the original, but it's still quite good. The entire album is quite good. At times it gets a groove going and you suddenly find yourself bobbing your head and saying "oh yeah." Other times it's just purely hypnotic.

Kitchen is a thoroughly satisfying excursion into the more intellectual realms of electronic music. If you even remotely enjoy this type of music, you'll love the album.

A lot of the album is ambient, but it's all good. The harder tracks are perfect if you want a unique sound that has solid danceability but no cheesy bombast. As far as being dated, far from it. This album is one of the most timeless there is. Perfect blend of bedroom listening and solid dancefloor influence. I've heard a lot of elitist intellectuals dismiss it, and it sure isn't hard throughout, but this album is the perfect crossover.

For those of you who find life in general stressful, or pass time by just chilling out, this album will set you at ease from the moment you press play. It's almost as if this album 'knows' your emotions, and changes the beat or lack of one accordingly. This album has everything: low soft chords on up to fast beats (nothing too fast), so it's sure to please all who listen. This album will kick off an obsession with Sun Electric that will last a lifetime.

This, for my money, is one of the great high-water marks of German/Euro trance. "Kitchen" is a simply beautiful work, filled with tracks that both bang as well as those that lull to provide a full CD that is a wonderful experience in of itself. Those who think 'trance' is purely of the more formulaic Goa variety need to listen to this thing. Too bad more people aren't doing techno this well these days...

In the world of ambient/IDM/electronica this is mainstream and does not stand the test of time in 2004. Coventional ambient stuff.