hexstatic - master-view
following on from the duo's excellent solid steel mix (one of the best of the commercially available series) the ninjatune mob release their second album with all sorts of added ingredients to make the final product hugely entertaining.
first there is the audio album.
which is like an old school dance album a la s-express/bomb the bass used to make when dance music was branching off in all directions (hip hop, house, reggae, cutups, electro). in as much that the album is 11 individual tracks, each in its own genre, with little in the way of a grand plan. there are no interludes, no connections between tracks, no big grand scheme, no story arc. just 11 separate tracks. after a few spins, this fact makes the album seem somewhat disjointed, there is no real consistency, no common thread. but, give the album a little more space and love and certain aspects become far more appealing.
to start with, there is the mellow analogue infused grooves of 'extra life', followed by 'chase me' with its most funked up guitar/bass line and echoed electric piano like some freaky 70's spy-drama car chase scene. the advert cutup vocals of 'telemetron' to a massive dubbed up beat recalls the sonic trademarks of many ninjatune releases, exposing that the album has a minimum of these vocal addons. unfortunately there is a few duds throughout the album, the first of which is the casio beat of 'l-virata' sounding like an old tack>>head b-side where the distorted rock style bass and ambient keyboards just make me crave for my original keith leblanc albums. luckily though the serene 'perfect bird' is exactly as the title would have you imagine, a laid back distant piano loop is matched against a duane eddy twang guitar and lovely female vocal line - a definite grower of a track. very special for those sunrise in the morning moments. next up is recent single 'salvador' has the world rhythm beats with the bongo craziness upping the party quotient somewhat, in fact it is during this track that the dawning of realisation hit upon the 5th spin of the album.
its time dig out those skint compilations - this album is a big beat revival album.
all the tracks have a simple melody, catchy hooks, and on the whole massive computer enhance beats. making this the best fatboy slim album ever. case in point - 'living' - big beats, cut up guitar line, sonic hooks that grab, samples galore. a great track, but ever so 1997.
luckily though, there is such simple joy in the grooves that any misgivings are easily displaced, especially on the juice aleem featuring 'distorted minds', another addition to the ever improving electronic based hip hop. this is an updated version of the roots manuva/leftfield type of groove, and should indeed indicate the genre hopping that the lads have decided to explore. its a massive track, an obvious future single. 'that track' drifts over and doesn't connect, its lightweight funk jazziness makes for an uninteresting few minutes, whereas 'toys are us' makes a lot more sense with the accompanying video on the dvd disc. having another tack>>head style distorted beat with various toy noises may not sound too interesting but when you see the animation that has been added to the beat all will become a lot clearer and makes things a lot more fun.
in fact maybe i should tell you a little more regarding the extras.
you see, as well as the audio album, hexstatic have added a full length dvd featuring various videos for each track. some are of the lo-tech cutups ('Salvador) like the bands previous videos, but there are others, which are full on visual brilliance. for me, the best has to be the 3d version of 'distorted minds', (oh, i also forgot to mention that as well as the 2d videos there are several in red/blue 3d versions!!) and when you see juice literally sitting out his words in 3d, you cannot help but be impressed.
crank up those big tv's and watch the woofers rumble.
the albums closer 'pulse', brings things to an obvious calm, with its tangerine dream/orbital type of clean melody, sine wave enhanced gorgeousness the world feels somewhat more relaxed and dare i say it - chilled out.
so yes, it's not a classic album of the nu-era, but it is 11 solid tracks, each with its own mood and style, making for a fine 45 minutes demonstrating the sheer scope and production skills that hexstatic are obviously capable of, and with the extra visuals this is a fine package to impress both party freaks and addicted video gamers.