Customer Reviews

68 Million Shades

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Anything I would say to describe this album would be a cliche -- a disservice to the music and to Spring Heel Jack. All I can say is I must have been walking around deaf my whole life before I came across this (I had originally been searching for Hale Bop, which is on his next release, and which I found to be a bit disappointing in comparison to 68 Million Shades.) When I listen to this music, I'm on a mountain, taking in the world around me. This is the music and these are the sounds that life makes. This music is the soundtrack to dreams. If you think you know what Jungle's all about (and I use that term as a universal category -- not a pigeonhole), you're seriously malnourished if you do not have this. My one goal in life now is to hear it performed live. Let's pray it comes true. I will never think of music in the same way -- I live it.

This is it, man. This is the one. If you searched Amazon for years after this you could not find an album richer or more exciting or more compelling. (Well ... okay. Not counting Orbital's In Sides.)

The formula is simple but perfect: driving beats and throbbing bass with futuristic and eerily dream-like sound effects. And spine-tingling atmosphere, laid on with a trowel. There are no words and no sunlight in this world, and you can't always see everything, but what you can see is just as intense as the title implies. Exhilarating, suspenseful pursuit and escape in a grim future--that's 68 Million Shades in a nutshell. There's a lot of old-school jungle elements, but writing this off as jungle is like calling Mount Everest a hill. No one ever did it like this, and (now that jungle seems passe and deep house and downtempo are the flavors du jour) no one will probably ever do it like this again.

"Take 1," my favorite track of the album, starts it off big with stark piano chords, in-your-face beats, clattering percussion, and an avalanche of less identifiable but very cool sounds, pulsing in a thrilling chase theme. Then the ante goes higher with the epic "Midwest," my favorite track of the album, with its synth crashes, wiggling electric guitar, and atmospheric washes that soar into ever higher and broader vistas. Amazing.

"60 Seconds," with its moody, blatting sax and sultry she-wants-it vocal sample, sounds like a warm-up for Masses. It's just an okay track, an idea that didn't reach full life until it was redubbed for Versions.

It's a close call, considering how packed this album is with highs, but for me "Pan" is the apex. There are 455 seconds in this track and I love every last one of them. I love every individual element that makes this track what it is. I love the whistling ambience that sounds like the breath of night, I love the underwater chimes and the Predator's ominous rattle, I love the tsst-tsst cymbal action and the nonchalant drumming, I love the funky bassline, I love the halo and percolating atmosphere effects, and I love, at the very end, the alarm clock that rings and seems to awaken me out of a dream that was taking place in the center of my own soul. Man.

Things get breakneck again with "Plates," which is my favorite track of the album, and calls to mind images of a hovercraft chasing a speederbike down a suspended, neon-lit highway. Among the compelling samples is an ethereal bell-like effect that seems like the voice of the night, and I'm perpetually enamored with what it has to tell me. Who needs daylight, anyway?

"Bar," with its brass and speeding-locomotive strings, joins "60 Seconds" in taking a playful break from all the serious chase-scene themes. When I hear this song I envision a tall, statuesque redhead in purple satin pajamas, being filmed through a purple filter against a white background, shutting her eyes and smiling contentedly as she grooves to the shuffling bassline.

A lot of the neon goes out and things get truly dark with "Eesti" (if the titles have anything to do with the content of the tracks themselves, I've never noticed it), which calls to mind images of hordes of ratlike creatures scurrying under a stormy sky. Actually, what I really associate this with is Lud, the Tick-Tock Man, and Blaine the Mono from Stephen King's The Waste Lands.

"Roger Tessier" is still darker, and "Island," while faster-paced, doesn't shed much light.

And then comes, yes, my favorite track of the album, "Suspensions." A piano chord strikes eerily again and again, then quickens with another chord, then builds slowly with strings and drums and bass into the ultimate nightmare. This is the longest track of the album and doesn't have quite as many elements as some of the others, but the elements that are there brim with power and the track as a whole is nothing short of utterly sublime. A terrifying epic. Halfway through the beats cut out and the strings and bass descend like fingertips pulling tracks into the foggy moisture on a cold windowpane while the piano corkscrews like a drugged moth, and my spine tingles so tightly it makes me convulse.

I got this album five years ago and I've been scouring electronica ever since, looking for something to equal it, since, alas, SHJ's subsequent five LPs went off in increasingly different directions. If you're on the same quest, let me say that their first album, There Are Strings, and 68MS's remix album, Versions, are indispensable. After that you should try Justice's Viewpoints, Orbital's In Sides, and (if you can find it) Skylobby's A Very Special Long-Playing Record. Platinum Breakz, the first King of the Jungle collection, and Dieselboy's albums aren't bad either. If you find anything else that compares, let me know.

This was one of the first drum 'n' bass albums I ever picked up, and in many ways it has spoiled me. I always find myself returning to the very smooth beats of Coxon and Wales. They do quite a bit with the form on this album, and they have proven to be one of the most interesting drum 'n' bass acts around. There's the Morricone-esque "Midwest", the throb of "Pan", and the dark and sinister "Roger Tessier". This is a really smooth, fine album that one can play straight through. May not suit hard jungle fans, but offers a very nice palette of sounds in what many think is a severely limited genre.

This is without a doubt one of the strongest albums I have ever heard. It's brave and experimental, yet never losing the music as a result. Strong, cohesive drum and bass.

This album is by far one of the best in my collection of over 300 techno CDs. When people ask to hear Drum & Bass or Jungle, this is what I play for them. At times, it may even represent Acid Jazz as well.

Unimposing to the first-time listener, the album is always a hit. No harsh sounds are used, and the rhythm and bass meld together into a seamless electronic dream.

A must buy for any techno lover, or for someone wanting to explore a new and exciting genre.

I had purchased this on a whim since the reviews were so good, and it was so cheap, and even though I dont think its perfect, its a real solid laid back drum N bass CD. It isnt my favorite Drum N Bass CD, but for the price it is pretty damm good. The one thing that I dont feel is perfect is that it seems to drag a bit in some parts, but then again, I would consider it more to be a "chill out" type of electronica, then straight up drum n bass. If you are looking for something that is similar with a heavy jazz influence, that is a bit more upbeat, then try "History of our World, Part 2" on Smile Records which is mixed by DJ DB. Its old school, I believe that it is almost 10yrs old, but it is still my favorite of all time on the Drum N Bass compliation CD's. ENJOY

YOU CAN HEAR THE JAZZ & CLASSICAL INFLUENCES THAT THESE GUYS BRING TO THE FORM. I THOUGHT LTJ BUKEM WAS GOOD, BUT THIS IS EVEN BETTER. GREAT DRIVING MUSIC TOO!