This first track is from Deru, another Merck artist, this track was on his 2004 release Trying to Remember.  This track will surely have you trying to remember where you are, but one look at the incredible album art by Akira Takahashi will remind you– you’re in ambient heaven.  Takahashi is such a talented artist that he deserves special mention here, as he was also the creator of a number of Merck covers, as well as one of my all-time favorites, Dieselboy’s The 6ixth Session.  I love his use of DIN in this cover, a typeface which to me, is like the Helvetica of the future.  This song begins with a slight sense of unease, eventually entering a cavernous and disjointed sequence, and then a dub-steeped glitch run.

Now to switch gears on you, wake you up and get your feet moving in a robotic fashion.  This next track is off the debut EP of one-half of slow disco edit duo Worst Friends, Ryan Cavanagh aka Addled.  The EP is called Heartbreachno and the track is titled “She’s My Lady Friend,” a tribal-tinged melodic tech house romp through a circuitboard jungle.  As I designed the album art for this release (it can be found along the sidebar here), I was immediately struck by the vocoded effects about 2:30 minutes into the song at this awesome robo-breakdown.  I began by sketching out concepts for the cover, Addled originally wanted something with rolling hills and trees, but I couldn’t help but lean more toward an almost Jetsons-looking aesthetic, complete with the raised platform houses.  Eventually, the project enjoyed the collaboration of Moodgadget co-founder and Art Director Adam E. Hunt, who helped guide the cover’s typography and lighting to the artist’s liking.  The result is a cover that I think meshes well with the music, it’s futuristic, yet very down-to-earth, expressing very human emotions, as represented by the lonely figure in the building in the foreground with his searchlights on, forever waiting for that long lost love to return.

Next up, a blast from the past…and when I finally found this track again this past weekend after so many years, I was blown away.  When I was in my formative stages of being an electronic/dance music junkie, I was big into the most accessible sub-genre of dance music, so-called “progressive house” which has come to encompass just about everything the sticklers consider to be on the more poppy side of things, and is filled to the brim with disposable crap and since largely driven me away.  However, this one has a nice house-influenced feel to it, and it sort of cruises along, it’s not all up in your face.  This track was released by Duty Free recordings, a UK-based Progressive House and Trance label that seems to have had it’s hay-day closer to the turn of the century, when I picked up Duty Free 2, a mind-boggling trance/dance bender mixed by Tall Paul and Darren Christensen.  This track has the BPM of a trance track, but when I opened Ableton and slowed things down a bit, I found that this song might still be able to get people moving, someone needs to give this puppy an edit or remix effort.  The track itself is a deep dub from Mr. G, who also had his own track on the mix, called G’s Strings, which I’ll post another time.

Finally, a track I came across on Torrentech, which recently fashioned itself into a label.  I got word of this through their mailing list, Re-Drum’s Differential Analysis, the culmination of 5 years of work, which they described as being “ambientish IDM” that was good for your intellectual capabilities…hm.  Well, while the album doesn’t radically push the boundaries in any new directions, that’s often considered something outside of IDM these days anyway, it does a great job of weaving the various enjoyable aspects of different genres, making it a worthwhile listen for sure.  I found myself drawn to the track Graphical’s deep, echoing keys resonating off the walls like in a raquetball court.  Best yet, it’s available for free here, although I’m not sure if you need to have a membership to access the download and I’m even less sure if they’re accepting new members.

Deru – Things You Said

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Addled – She’s My Lady Friend

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Lottie – Bushroot (Mr. G’s Gone Deep Dub)

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Re-Drum – Graphical

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Posted in Album Artwork and Music Posted by Alex on Feb 17 2009 11:19 am

Tags: Addled, Akira Takahashi, Deru, DIN, Duty Free, Heartbreachno, Lottie, Re-Drum