SURFACE 10
422839
CD
IN VITRO TIDE
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AMBIENT (SYNTH)This Californian based composer’s influences incorporate a variety of musical styles ranging from experimental electronica to ‘Ambient’ to progressive jazz and beyond. , ‘In Vitro Tide’ follows the 1996 self-titled debut album, a CD which gained the Surface 10 name recognition in both the ‘Synth’ and ‘Ambient’ genres. Where that first release was a lush space music classic, ‘In Vitro Tide’, is a 74-minute, 9 track monster that couldn’t be further away from its predecessor if it tried! According to its creator: “It is a sentiment of timelessness, filtered through a series of experimental approaches - As an edition to the electronic music world, ‘In Vitro Tide’ epitomizes the mystery of existence through technology - It is nothing less than a pulsing, reckless tour de force of spiky, punchy beats welded and fused with white noise, grunge guitar, dislocated voices and a swaggering disregard for somnolent sine wave culture that permeates much of today's Electronica”. The album is basically all about converging sounds, textures and layers together and morphing them in and out of various musical shapes and forms. The fractured style rhythms are from the techno-drum ‘n’ bass/ambient end of things, and to that extent, it could be described as ‘Industrial’ electronic music. With a glistening, extrovert production, the album is a cavalcade of ideas - It’s dynamic and solid in construction, but requires a few plays before the real subtleties show their face, and believe it or not, there are times where the dense layers of texture are frequently parted, to reveal astonishing knots of wry melody lurking deep beneath the surface. Each track slides from one oeuvre to another, with dazzling, almost precocious attention to detail, which offers much in the way of rewards for repeated listening. Far from being your average normal ‘Ambient’ release, ‘In Vitro Tide’ is a highly satisfying voyage of discovery in sounds and textures that the more adventurous listener will get a lot out of.
Within two minutes of the intro to ‘This Will Sting’ you’re treated to a massive shockwave of shredded percussive rhythms that sound like someone’s put the drums in a mincer, while all around are synths and electronics in random elements, as the whole thing tumbles along with only the faintest of synth melody lines flowing at the back. But then, like so much of this album, the whole thing can change shape at the drop of a hat, and here, a sort of busy drum ‘n’ bass rhythm fires up and then all manner of synth, choral and electronic layers rise up to joust for pole position. After that, they drop away, and the whole thing becomes so full of layers, textures, samples, melodies, sound effects, percussion, drums, it’s difficult to know what bit to focus on next… Then it stops! The next track is ‘Epheral’ and it begins with a few seconds of cosmic synths as a bonging synth rhythm bounces about on top and a dynamic, mid-tempo echoed reflection of a drum ‘n’ bass/techno style rhythm lurches into view as the track begins to build on its layers of percussive beats. Here the effect is less nerve shattering as the layers are kept largely on the spacious, flowing side of synth music, but still mixing industrial style rhythms with lush electronic layers, creating in this case an effect that is particularly mesmerising. On this track, it works a treat for nearly six minutes, and it is one of the best tracks on the album. The 3rd track: ‘Service 10 Rendered’ opens with voice samples, thudding beats and echoed synths, with a solid sequencer line stumbling into the foreground. All sorts of soaring synth lines swirl all around the mix as it builds its blend of rhythms and synth backdrops, with samples and effects well to the fore. As on earlier tracks, once again, things twist and turn through territories that change faster than you can blink. This track, like so much of the album as a whole, revolves around sounds, textures and layers that are piled high on top of each other, and the way the tracks change shape within each composition is quite staggering. Rather than relying on anything so traditional as tunes and melodies (although there is some good melody worked into the latter half of this track), these guys prefer fractured, splintered rhythms to anything else, even in the case of techno-drum ‘n’ bass/ambient fields. You could say this is almost an industrial electronic album, were it not for the fact that the pace is largely kept mid-tempo, the music is dynamic and solid rather than heavy or intense, and I have to say that the second and third time round, I enjoyed it more than the first, because this is an album you have to experience and then start to listen to it after that. Far from normal, it’s adventurous and to my mind satisfying music that is breaking the mould of the genres in which it operates. I can just imagine some of the music press, bored with the same old things day in - day out, saying particularly complementary things about it.
Weight: 150.00 g
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