Label: Nettwerk / Sub-Conscious Communications Format: CD
Okay. Let’s get this straight. The back cover is composed entirely of acid blotters. The pictures of Phil Western and cEvin Key on the inside are just a bunch of eyes. And the tracks are called stuff like “Muscaria” and “Ayahuasca”. Yes, kids, it’s an album about – call the cops – DRUGS. And really mental ones at that.
A lot less abrasive than much previous Download output, and a lot more psychedelic. More third eye opening than eardrum bleeding, but still all very, very sinister. There are more weird sounds than weird noises, and if that’s a subtle distinction then it’s also a fucking important one. Fragments of voices and surges of electronic mayhem float along atop those bouncy but insistent bass patterns Key’s been in love with since his days making more violent noise in Skinny Puppy. And yeah, you could dance to it, especially stuff like “Muscaria” with its funky percussion, but it’s much more fun and, indeed, much more effective when just listened to under the influence of tons of really vicious chemicals.
This is definitely space music, but it’s the space inside your head, and it’s populated with truly weird little fuckers, like the guy on the phone at the start of the hefty, clunky Techno Animal-style workout “Vagator” who insists “I’m not normal. I am a demon.” And in this space, no-one can hear you scream, because there’s all this mental electronic music going on. Every now and then the whole thing goes underwater, like on “Chrysanthemum”, and you just have to wonder how come all the instruments still work. It’s kind of like the bastard electronic offspring of My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts and… umm, something pretty fucking mental. With Drum’n’Bass bits on (check out “Ayahuasca”).
Yep, it’s pretty damn good. But be careful- it could really, really fuck you up.
-Deuteronemu 90210 In The Sky With Diamonds-
