More stripped down, skeletal, than the folktronics found on his free dwld over at LastFM, Protect and Survive is a far looser, more abstract experience. Recorded live at the Cube way back in 2003, it still sounds freshly pressed, leaping around, teasing out it's own vocabulary in wobbling milk bottles, skating envelopes and other digital dug-outs. Glitch-onically wholesome stuff that has a whiff of factory ambiance about it… All the differing textures rubbing up against each other nicely, keeping your attention right across the albums 67 mins, the space filled with flights of fancy (sometimes frustratingly fleeting), concentrated pulses and the occasional sink hole of pixel-headed whirl… Absolutely loving all those mechanoidal clippings going on here, coupled with those acid etched scampers and slip-tone tap-dancings on teeny triangles, makes this a truly visual treat… sound twisted outa shape, in pure audio autopsy stylee…Those shadow boxing pile-ups are also fun, not to mention the brief Stephen Hawkins/piano interlude… I secretly hope that some of these strange sounds were derived from the Avon Rubber PLC factory floor, I really do… micro-cosmic moonshine.
Comments
Amazing stuff.