Customer Reviews

Sheath

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

 

 

It's been a depressing few years in many respects for electronic music. With parties being shut down, a post 9/11 world depression, war, and a once robust indie music industry floundering and selling-out, we techno-friends find ourselves these days uninspired, abandoned, and surrounded by cheesy, wimpy deep house music, pretentious glitch hop and superstar DJs scrounging for the last drops. But there's still a lot of life in there. And we just need the best artists to step up and remind us. Techno music is still vital no matter what anyone says. And Mark Bell's first album in seven years proves it! Sheath couldn't have come at a better time. From the hard-as-nails "Mum-man" to the funky, rave throughback "Freak" to the wistful "Premacy," to the muscular beats and dulcet melodies of "Moistly," LFO rocks it with Sheath. In some ways, after years of loving and supporting this music, I personally was just about ready to through my hands up on the whole thing and become a techno dinosaur, relegate it all to some mythic past, but Sheath is a very bright spot indeed, beaming off the horizon. Maybe truly inspired music and the cultures that inspire it and support it will come back up out of the dumps. Maybe in an age of Mp3-kills-the-music, good popular music and good popular artists will survive after all. Techno or electronica or whatever it is, may need to progress and change, but that feeling that the rave heyday and the prolific brilliance of '90s electronica once captured still cuts true like a knife through the pop music butter. Jack back into it. Get into Sheath.

This is by far one of my favorite electronic albums out there.
Not too minimal like Autechre or Richard Devine but not too clubby like Underworld or zongamin. Just right in the middle. It's perfect!!!

The Sheath album is such a crisp clean modern sounding collection. My favorite title is Freak which sounds like something you can dance your ass off in a techno club. And a few others of the songs are very mystical sounding. I recommend this album.

It is a very special music above the average of other electronic proposals.. When I discovered that Mark Bell was involved in Bjork's sound, I decided to hear some of his music, and it was a worthwhile desicion. It presents a very nice programming of the analog synthesizers. There is a "quasi academic" tendency in the development of his themes, and he uses timbre as a leading element in the discourse

Wow, the long-awaited return of LFO. After years of being in the sidelines, Mark Bell finally reclaims his glory as one of the innovators of techno. But the field has changed a lot since his last album, and Bell finds himself mostly up to the task of taking on the youngsters. "Blown" starts off SHEATH on a bright note, an almost music-box feel, but "Mum-Man" quickly returns us to heavier, aggressive techno. "Mokeylips" sends a tentative hello to his bleep `n' bass roots, while "Snot" rocks it out in 5/4 time, and unexpected and startling touch. "Unafraid to Linger" contrasts the low frequency tones with higher notes, bringing the original LFO concept firmly into the present, while "Sleepy Chicken" is a wave-diagram of a dreamer's REM state. "Freak" is so old-school that it makes you smile just thinking about it. The rhythm-and-strings of "Nevertheless" doesn't get too repetitive -- you can thank the short running time for that. And the album rounds out with the quiet and contemplative "'Premacy," a track that shows Bell's range, if nothing else. LFO is still alive, and don't blow out your speakers remembering it, either.

I'm am a music enthusiast. LFO has to be regonized for their groundbreaking first album's contributions to the electronic music genre, and for their brilliant production techniques for likes of Bjork. Although their work is released on the primarily IDM (intelligent dance music) label Warp Recordings, it should be noted that this is much more listenable cd for the masses then works by the other major artists on the label (aphex twin, plaid, autechre, and squarepusher). "There's something for everyone" ; so to speak, some hard hitters, some good cruis'N tunes, one or 2 club bangers, and several tracks to chill out with. Alot of energy on this album, but only gets 4 out of 5, cause theirs not anything as unforgetable as Simon from Sidney.

LFO's "Advance" was one of the classic mid-nineties dance albums, with its crisp, almost militaristic beats and moonrise-on-Mars atmosphere. This album, seven years later, is a bit of a letdown, with much less of a distinctive identity. It reminded me more of Orbital at their most techno than of previous LFO releases... but much, much less interesting than Orbital. Oh well.

SHEATH became everything that I expected the album's music not to be: lethargic, and filled with goofy/cutsey sounds that are more embarrasing than intriguing. There are hardly any glimpses of the pioneering work LFO has done as one of the earliest signings to the Warp Records roster nearly 15 years ago.

There were only two bright spots for me on this album. One was the album opener "Blown", which layers synths and muted, distant percussion to form a genuinely beautiful melody. The other was "Snot" which has great maniacal percussion backed by SHEATH's strongest hook.

The remainder of the music ranges from mediocre to completely terrible. The worse offenders being "Monkeylips", "Sleepy Chicken" and "Mummy, I've Had an Accident". The single from this album, "Freak", dosen't quite shake the dancefloor as it's opening robot-vocal sample would entice you to believe. (Consider the "Freak" CD single, as it has two decent non-album tracks which fare better as dance music than most material here).

Final Rating: 1.5 stars