Blue for the Most - Abraham

Track list:

1. Magpie
2. Stay Here
3. What Gives With You
4. City For Us
5. Start The Song Backwards
6. Blue For The Most
7. For All The Times
8. Heather
9. Freedom's When
10. On A Plane
11. Ever So Slowly

Running time: 39 minutes
Released: 2002

So there was a point I bought up a lot of downtempo electronica. I think I was inspired by how much I loved Bonobo's Animal Magic (that may well end up the most linked post in the blog) and just made purchases of fancy in that general direction. I am pretty sure that is how I happened upon Abraham. I recall really liking this album - particularly the title track and the opener, Magpie. However I don't think that I have once thought of it or played it in the last couple of years (Last FM confirms no scrobbles since 2013). I really don't expect it to stand up, thinking instead that I will see it for the faddish purchase it was, but we'll see.

The early strains sound dated. The vocal is still pretty but - and I'm going to run into this again when I unearth my Zero 7 albums, I'm sure - it just feels... old, tired. Early noughties chill, no place in the modern world. Yet I have need of open lazy time more than ever of late. Despite really appreciating the target goal of the track, I am just not seeing how it engenders it. It's a little too empty, and that was one of the songs I remembered fondly.

Stay Here is familiar once the lyric gets moving and suffers from the same problem. There is sod all of any interest going on in the composition. Boring rhythm that is just a little too persistent, lack of any melody worth the name. The voice doesn't hold the same lustre as it did on Magpie either. It has some kind of dirty effect applied, making it breathier, grubbier; duller. The next track is worse - it adds more variation in the arrangement but that is achieved by cheesy synth sounds that make my toes curl. I don't know if I am just in the wrong mindset for this or whether I somehow blinded myself to tracks full of faults in search of a sound that others did better. What really astounds me sitting here in 2015 is that I bought another Abraham record after this one. The one thing I will say in its favour - the songs are shortish and so it won't keep me too long. Somewhere along the line they might just manage a decent blend of interesting patterns to go with the singing which is, at least, consistently pleasant. Its problem is that pleasant is certainly not enough - not any more.

I wrote the intro, that describes this as faddish, a few days ago. I have only just re-read the sentence. Sometimes one has a sense for these things. In fairness, I think the particular style of music that this espouses is a really hard one to do with any kind of longevity. This would have only worked because there were a hundred and one different groups churning out "chillout" music with ethereal vocals and plenty of space to relax into; it was everywhere, you couldn't escape it and frankly it was a darn site less annoying than Nu-Metal.

Hmm - the title track just started. Here the organ line lends it a freshness, supporting the singer a little more. There is still a lot of blandness in the rest of the piece but it is a very noticeable jump in interest. I was all set to be sceptical of it given how little Magpie still appealed, but this? Its alright. Not stellar, but it actually has enough to it to work and hit the target it was shooting for. You have three or four things happening throughout the track which helps stop any of them from becoming too dominant or repetitive and it allows her voice to soar and engage. My listen seems to be blighted by odd jumps - a bad rip, perhaps? - but that is a big step up from boredom. The next track even threatens to pick up the baton and keep the level at an acceptable level for a while, but then just fails to build on a start that had enough in terms of rhythm and synth strings to build false promise. It quickly settles into a rhythm which is disappointing. It is still miles more interesting than the first 5 tracks though.

I have had a strange few days, to the point I am finding that I need every second I can to try to de-clutter my mind. I am just constantly mentally switched on at the moment and it means that I am not finding time for active participation in fun. Weirdly I find this sort of stream-of-consciousness effort conducive to that mental decompression. I switch off the parts of my brain that are chewing over things and just let surface thoughts run wild. That's probably why the opening is quite so negative. I don't like ragging on things really - I would far rather say something is not for me than that it is bad, and be on far more safe ground if I did. That said, I don't think the "one in a crowd of many" spirit of the comments is particularly unfair or unkind. Abraham certainly were not the most celebrated of the downtempo clones that appeared with the new millenium, they are also probably far from the worst. They just happen to be the lacklustre one that I have the misfortune to be spending my Thursday evening with!

The digression of the previous paragraph signifies a return to the flatness I felt listening to the first half of the disc. There just isn't quite enough happening here to switch on and tune my ears in to, and neither is it having a soothing, relaxing effect. There is something a little... awkward about some of the rhythms employed, exacerbated by the odd skip or jump in the playback which has persisted past the one song, which prevents me from finding the pieces as placating as I am sure they were intended to be. I am into the last couple now, and the vocal performance on On a Plane is more daring, stretching and soaring like the subject of the title (I have not picked out the lyrics enough to say whether it fits the subject of the song). Alas whilst that is interesting and a welcome stretching of the safety the other tracks have been mired in, it is paired with a particularly dull backing and so on balance the tune is no more appealing to me than any of the rest. A shame really.

I think this vocalist could have been wonderful with a more inspired tune to back her up, but alas what she seems to hve been working with is distinctly middle of the road, uninspired, even phoned-in arrangement. There are warbles and tinkles on the final track that remind me of some of the sounds used on Premieres Symptomes by Air... but where there they are (from memory) used as part of a sonic construction to build interest, here they are left isolated. The difference in impact is therefore immense and ultimately I find my prediction confirmed. Only the title track really stood out; only the title track survives the swing of the axe.

Black Sands - Bonobo

Track list:

1. Prelude   
2. Kiara   
3. Kong   
4. Eyesdown   
5. El Toro   
6. We Could Forever   
7. 1009   
8. All In Forms   
9. The Keeper   
10. Stay The Same   
11. Animals   
12. Black Sands

Running time: 54 minutes
Released: 2010

We circle back now to Bonobo. I loved, and still love, Animal Magic, but I have been disappointed in pretty much every other Bonobo release to some degree. I seem to keep buying them though. I am not certain why... perhaps because I want to believe the magic of that downtempo classic will be recaptured. I doubt it will be, and here we might pick up on some reasons why.

As I start this, I expect that there will be some decent tunes on here as well as disappointments. The question in my mind is in what ratio?

The Prelude has an oriental air to it, a piercing string melody that is very harsh to begin with but softens as a mellow keyboard appears underneath it. Not what I was expecting from a prelude at all; this I had almost already chalked off as for deletion but that is very unfair in truth. I like it as a starting point. There is no track break and so Kiara starts by seamless transition; somehow it completely changes the dominant theme almost immediately - whilst those strings appear again later, the track is centred around a pulsing electronica, beats and squeaks alike, clashes. It feels lacking in cohesion. Not all over the place and disconnected, just not brought together optimally. Or something. It isn't bad, it's just no Sleepy Seven or Terrapin. The curse of loving something so much that it means nothing can live up to it!

Kong is more immediately likable. From the name I was expecting more bombast but this is sweeter, lighter. The central theme, a wavy, floaty loop, gets old quickly though, and there is not quite enough else going on to cover for that until it drops out just after the 2 minute mark. Now my ear fixates on the drum loop and I am finding that has the same issue - initially interesting then turning to tripe on repetition. Funny how fickle we find we can be eh? I somehow cannot escape the feeling that I have heard it all before, to the point of desensitisation. It feels like... background noise? I don't want to damn this with the same breath as I did Quantic because it is better than that. It is more that this sort of music is so... institutionalised now, everywhere, and it is hard to call any of this particularly distinctive.

Eyesdown introduces vocals - quiet, indistinct vocals, but vocals non-the-less. This is one area where I was expecting disappointment but actually the vocal makes this tune work better than if it were not there, adding a dimension that is just not there without it and breaking up the generic tedium of indistinct shuffling patterns that feel so familiar as to be a little dull. When did I get quite so cynical? Again, not bad just a little lifeless. Thankfully you cannot say the same for El Toro. Taking a leaf out of the Prelude's book there is a strong string theme to lift this number, and the percussion is more prominent, louder and more central than the preceding tracks. These two factors elevate the tune to a

level above, more immediate and more engaging than its predecessors. It is still, alas, nothing like as immediately charming as the best tracks on Animal Magic but it is a cut above the rest of Black Sands to date. 

The next track keeps the stronger percussion and a more contrasting central theme, making it feel like he has found the voice for the record, but it has a cheesier edge to it that makes me shudder and think of bad 80s Hawaiian disco scenes in the movies of the day. Ugh. It gets better as it goes, losing the bad bongos feel to a degree but there is something in the staccato nature of the sounds here that really encourages images of gaudy shirts, floral necklaces and fat men with maracas. Do not want.

1009 returns us to more recent, but still bygone, days, its opening conjuring instead the sound of dial up routers connecting. This is just not relaxing to listen to at all, and if Bonobo does not have that, then frankly it has virtually nothing going for it. The tune gets a little more interesting and less bleepy as it goes but not enough to assuage that initial strong negative reaction and make me want to ever hear it again. I think its fair to say my disappointment is really kicking in at this stage - self-fulfilling prophecy or not. Ah, now that is better. There is a shimmering air to the opening of All in Forms that I rather like. I almost wrote "dig" there, but then I remembered this is not the 70s (when I wasn't alive to be so uncool). The track title seems odd, because the appeal of this track lies in it almost but not quite taking form. It seems to be a shift away from completeness at every step, like it is out of phase with itself somehow, and this is a really evocative ambiance for me. About half way it pulls together, losing the shimmer and taking shape as a simple little tune over a distant backing. Best tune on the disc so far - whilst El Toro was stronger and more stand out, this just has an x-factor, a secret ingredient that inexplicably binds it into a more immediately enjoyable tune.

Today is not the day I hoped it would be; not bright enough to tempt me outside, I was lethargic about rising this morning and that slowness is still with me. The music I am listening to half reflects that back with The Keeper which feels sleepy in its tempo. The vocal annoys me though - it turns what is a nice lazy tune into a bad RnB track (and there will be more of them in later listens, for sure). In my late teens I would probably have loved that, but those days were long gone before this album was released and so despite a good core composition for the way I am feeling right now, the fact I can't get past the vocal means another one for the scrap heap. If I can't enjoy the track when my brain is moving in slow-mo then I never will. I am happy to hear that mood is jettisoned for the following tune, but my hope sinks when a vocal comes in. Be fair, though... it isn't in the same boring lifeless class as what went before, and fits better with what is around it. There is a smoky, wispy quality to the vocal, a duskiness blown away by the clear melody that soars over everything else, drawing my ear away from the repetitive nature of the patterns at play. As the track ends I find myself pulled in two different directions by it which at least merits giving it another chance.

The last two tunes are longer, both over 6 minutes. This is a little bit of a concern when the style in general relies on loops and repetition to the degree that it does. However the opening minutes of Animals is pretty glorious, the percussion a rata-tat-tat of snares keeping a good pace whilst the melody wanders and wavers above. The blueprint changes up entirely just before the 4 minute mark too, meaning that the worry of long-term repeats is taken out of the equation. The high tempo beats recede a little - still there, but less audible behind a sparser and tinnier percussion and a jazz-like melody. I'm not sure which animals the track (or at least its title) is meant to make us think of, but that is an irrelevant detail I find myself unduly considering as the timer runs out on the tune. We are left, then with just the title track. 

It starts with an uncharacteristically slow pace, much more focus on the melodic than the rhythmic portions of the tune. When it develops into what sounds like a sad French movie soundtrack, a mournful quality in the clarinet(?) which carries the central tune lending the track its dominant tone. The quiet horns that rise in support further reinforce that Gallic air, whilst reminding me a little of Beirut. As the percussion picks up and becomes more of a central player you could picture Paris receding into a credits sequence. I really like this track - everything hangs together well and despite the sadness that comes through from the themes it feels as a whole like a very positive and affirmative way to close. It probably drifts on a minute or so longer than it needed to, especially as the themes are given that time to die out, sucking the life out of the track rather than closing with a positive decision but it ends the listen with me feeling much better about the album as a whole. There were tracks I will cut, but only a quarter of the disc in the end, when I feared it would be more. 

It isn't really fair to dismiss Black Sands on the basis that it isn't Animal Magic. If the same album was being trotted out several times then it wouldn't be so special, and I would likely have ranted about lack of evolution or creativity or something instead. It is totally fair to say that I don't hold this album in the same place in my heart, but there are some pretty neat tunes here all the same that I am glad to have and retain.

An Announcement to Answer - Quantic

Track list:

1. Absence Heard, Presence Felt
2. An Announcement to Answer
3. Blow Your Horn
4. Bomb in a Trumpet Factory
5. Politick Society
6. Meet Me at the Pomegranate Tree
7. Sabor
8. Ticket to Know Where
9. Tell it Like You Mean it

Running time: 38 minutes
Released: 2006

Oh dear, after I savaged The 5th Exotic (I should really go back and make that a casualty; there is stuff I liked more that got cut) I am not expecting much from this. I have this disc as a freebie from an ex-colleague who left to return to her native Italy. I remember on the day I picked it up I was asked why (by someone else) and I did not have a strong answer then, nor do I now. Hopefully, a few more years peddling the shuffle will have the result improving. Time will tell; at least it is short at sub 40 minutes.

It opens with a whimsical sort of tune, which is actually not unpleasant but is rather... nothing. The sort of thing you might expect to play over a 30 second black and white clip on TV then never hear again. It has a backdated charm, but no substance to make that charm really appealing, and then it is gone. The title track is perhaps more of what I was expecting. The relative volume of the percussion and the shuffle over it are reversed from expectation (drums too loud) but otherwise it is pretty much on message. Instrumental loops and beats with no real direction. Shuffle at its core. The title of the album and the track is really at odds with the impression it gives. An Announcement to Answer is statement-like, demanding a response; pity the stridency and purpose of the phrase is missing from the tune it titles.

Blow Your Horn introduces a rapper - this seems to be an evolution of downtempo artists, to introduce vocals to their "chillout" music; I am pretty sure Bonobo has done the same post Animal Magic (another memory to be examined later on) and I have heard it with Kinobe too. Personally I am not a fan because the result falls between two stools: it is neither good hip-hop, nor relaxing enough to play up the main positives of downtempo material. And when the basis on to which the vocalist is grafted is shakily average anyway - as it is here - the effect is pretty poor. Thankfully it is not on every track, but still, the half way house may work for some, but in this case it is not somewhere I want to stay.

When the track started, I was feeling more positive about Bomb in a Trumpet Factory but the incessant nature of it ground me down and left me not keen. When a similarly over-strong and repetitive rhythm is also used as the backbone of the following track it pretty much rules that out too, even before the vocal starts - a song, truly - but well... there is a Latin theme here, and in that case I could be listening to something with more charm like Buena Vista Social Club. This is not that. The melodies are there but they are wholly suborned to a percussion that by now feels like it is trying to bore into my brain with a jackhammer; I do not appreciate that. Generally there is nothing to complain about with Latin rhythms and tunes - they are almost by definition unobjectionable - but somehow Quantic manage to make it so through the imbalance of the various component parts.

I do feel that the tunes here have more distinct character - both as a theme to the album and differences between the tracks - than those on The 5th Exotic, so that I guess is a mark in its favour. However thus far they have all had the exact same problem with the percussion being too loud relative to the rest of the music. Were the tracks rebalanced I could imagine myself keeping a couple of them, but as presented on this disc there is no interest in that at all. Sabor is the first track where the balance is even vaguely OK to my ear, but it is also 7 minutes long and far too repetitive for a large chunk of that time. The final two numbers (another rap-over-Latin and a rambling mishmash of dull electronica) do absolutely nothing to sway my mind, so the entirety of this disc is for the chop. Whilst I am at it I shall go back and do the same to the majority of the other album to put the lingering injustices to other cut records to bed.

Animal Magic - Bonobo

Track list:

1. Intro
2. Sleepy Seven
3. Dinosaurs
4. Kota
5. Terrapin
6. The Plug
7. Shadowtricks
8. Gypsy
9. Sugar Rhyme
10. Silver

Running time: 44 minutes
Released: 2000

A firm favourite now, going back to when I first picked it up. This album was one of the reasons I started buying up electronica for a while. I am interested to see how it stands up to the passage of time and to a listen through in full. I know I still love these tracks when they show up in rotation (as Terrapin did on 1 November) - and the fact I remember that 2 weeks on says something.

The intro can be disregarded in shuffle, but in long form, it... no, it does not set things up well - there's too much dead space on the end before track 2 starts. With Sleepy Seven starts the love. The chimes and the beat already hit that laid back tone before the main themes kick in and then: relaxation. I get excited about this album because it is so immensely unexcitable, a paragon of chill-out. Yes, it is a style that deservedly takes a lot of flak for not really doing anything, but I do not feel that is a fair criticism of early Bonobo (I like his later work less, I have to say). There is a lot going on in this track, voice samples, chimes, beats, the theme, pattern breaks; there is always something to actually listen to whilst disengaging from your daily stresses and strains.

I am less fond of Dinosaurs; the rhythm grabs me less, and the drone-like quality to the theme is so-so, but the sampled muted trumpets I like. The track builds though, and improves as it goes a little before fizzling out. Kota always felt like token ethnicity as a title, not sure why, but as the layers build up over the looped string sample it does work to relax me - or maybe that's the booze. Finally got some long-awaited shelves up today; celebrating a much more spacious and clearer kitchen and hall. I think I like the melodic breaks in this track more than its staple pattern.

Terrapin is the tune that makes the album for me. As much as I adore Sleepy Seven, it is this track that will forever define Bonobo for me. Something about the structure of the main loops, call and answer, and then the up-and-down of the backing just really clicks for me. The vocal samples do not fit so well with the general ambiance but otherwise this is pretty much the perfect bliss out track for me. Things going on, really melodic, slow pace and just brought together perfectly with a light touch. The mood is maintained nicely by The Plug, where the clarinet (?) line is a particular joy but it is more fleeting and less prominent than I remember. The vocal sample is much better integrated though and the whole track simply carries on the wonderful mood that has been established already.

Shadowtricks changes that mood, but slooooows everything down, maintaining the relaxation that way. The titter of high notes occasionally sounds like something is about to fall over and need catching, but the introduction of a jazz trumpet sample quashes that or rather translates it to your eyelids. Unfortunately Gypsy is a little too repetitive and dull to maintain the nice detachment from reality, it breaks the spell a little, snapping me out of the trance. It has a darker theme, continued in the next track and whilst this is still pretty good at sloughing away the stresses and strains of the day, it does not give me the same emotional response that the first half of the album does.

Thankfully Silver is more in tune with that melodic approach seen earlier. It is lighter, using strings and more trumpets to create interest over a bustling bass. It is a nice closer, reaffirming my faith in the album. One thing this project seems to be teaching me is that I ascribe favourites based on emotional memories, but very often the albums that I give that tag do not stand up well, rather one or two really strong tracks stand out and inform my overall opinion. I often feel that if an album has 3 great tracks on it that it has been a good buy, which when you stop and think about it is often a terrible hit rate. I am also coming to the conclusion that my ability to enjoy the album as a long-form work has been undermined by so many years of shuffling everything. Yes, the car always gave me room for disc-based appreciation, but fundamentally when driving I am always concentrating on something else, so I can miss whole swathes without realising it.

I guess I am just frustrated that so many of these listens generate negative copy, even on the ones I really like. I would not be being honest if I held back the less positive thoughts when listening but I think I need a more affirmative way of phrasing things when there is good to communicate.

Animal Magic remains a favourite for its ability to create and maintain overall mood. There are only a couple of stand out tracks, but the others serve purpose in keeping you attuned to the downtempo, chilled ambiance. I think it is Bonobo's best record.

1958 Breaks - Skalpel

Track List:

1. Break In (Backini Remix)
2. 1958 (Quantic Remix)
3. Break In (Dr Rubberfunk 'Live @ No.10A' Remix)
4. 1958 (Skalpel Remix)
5. Break In (J's Remix)
6. Break Out (Skalpel Remix)
7. Low
8. Low (Reconstruction By The Amalgamation Of Soundz)
9. Break In (Paradowski Remix)
10. 1958 (Extended Version)
11. Laboratorium

Running time: 47 minutes
Released: 2005

To be honest, I suspect this is not going to be a great listen for me. Too many remixes and I have a nagging suspicion that I ended up only liking one or two Skalpel tracks despite the stable of tunes (I have the eponymous album and Konfusion too). I guess I will find out in due course. However I went through a phase of digging Ninja Tune (blame Bonobo and The Cinematic Orchestra) so picked up the odd thing here and there.

I  think that I picked this up as part of the purchase of Skalpel but I really don't recall now. The tracks on 1958 Breaks are mostly reworkings of tunes from that album, with Low and Laboratorium the exceptions, thus everything is somewhat familiar in the general sense, if not the specific. The folk doing the remixes are not familiar though, except for Quantic. In truth I think Skalpel have more than a hint of the shuffle about them so I am not massively surprised to see Quantic pop up here.

The fact that the first six tracks cover two tunes (I am making the assumption here that Break Out is a reworking of Break In - that does not seem like a stretch), and there are thus only 4 different base tunes comprising the 11 on this collection is one of the main problems I have looking back at old single purchases - where your reward for buying the main track is 3 more versions of it you will never listen to. Gone were the days of meaningful B-sides. Having said that, Dr Rubberfunk's take on Break In feels sufficiently different to the Backini mix that started the listen and J's mix is a whole minute shorter so there may just be enough variation in approach to make the whole work better than feared. They may all blur into one and drawing specific distinctions may prove troublesome but so long as I am not utterly tired and bored by the end of it... no foul.

Whilst I think "inoffensive downbeat shuffle" is a fair tag, I think it applies in less accusatory manner than against The 5th Exotic - which I guess is just be a pretentious way of saying I like this more. The general tone of Skalpel's stuff does tend to be inoffensive, downtempo and low key but there is more variety and more going on to change that tone in the overlay. Not all of it works, Break Out is a bit of a mess, its variation on the Break In base not to my taste at all but I am pleasantly surprised by how 1958 Breaks maintains an interest. Low comes in to change things up at the right time though. It is a pleasantly atmospheric soundtrack piece, putting me in the mood of hardboiled film noir and nighttime shots of LA in the 40s or 50s.

The reconstruction, which follows immediately, has a very different tone simply because the percussion is highlighted more, and the tempo is higher. It gives the piece a tension that was not necessarily there in the base tune. I find myself grateful of both and listening to them back to back is no chore at all. It is as I go to try to check LastFM for how these are recorded there I notice that somehow the scrobbler has not activated for this listen, so my record of having done it (aside from this post) is incomplete. Well, no-one cares but me, and I can live with it!

It tickles me that the "extended version" of 1958 is a whole minute shorter than the other mixes on this album. It is, of course, extended in reference to the version on Skalpel which is a minute and a half shorter still. To be honest, the other mixes were better and if this is just an extra 90 seconds of the same base, it is unwarranted - but I am not about to check, and S is a very long time ahead.

I am glad as Laboratorium begins and the album is winding down but on the whole it has been a lot more enjoyable than I expected. There is no drive to excise any tracks; one or two would probably be no loss, but neither are they bad enough to demand being shown the door.

The 5th Exotic - Quantic

Track List:

1. Introduction
2. The 5th Exotic
3. Snakes in the Grass
4. Infinite Regression
5. Life in the Rain
6. Long Road Ahead
7. Common Knowledge
8. The Picture Inside
9. Through These Eyes
10. Time is the Enemy
11. In the Key of Blue
12. Meaning

Runtime: 52 Minutes
Released: 2001

So WMP ignores "The" at the start of album titles as well as in artist names when ranking alphabetically; ok. I am not looking forward to this one. I suspect that my taste has shifted enough for me to find this album tedious (and given there are two more to come with the Quantic name on them...), but here we go. It starts with a voice recording intro, so far, so quaint and unoriginal, then quickly moves into the title track which is humdrum, generic electronica. A so-so hook, tinny sounds and occasional voice samples do not make for great interest.

I think I picked this up on the strength of an Amazon recommendation, probably after I fell in love with Bonobo's Animal Magic - an album I still enjoy - because they're in a similar vein. Hopefully my poor impression will be dispelled some and my hostility towards this inoffensive downbeat shuffling might prove to be misplaced.

The problem is not that inoffensive downbeat shuffle is necessarily a bad thing; it certainly has its place. The problem is that it is terrible for actually listening to, rather than providing a convenient low background hum to conversation because so little actually happens to engage the ear. Weirdly this album is likely to prove full of the sorts of tracks I do not skip if the player is set to random, because they work as scenery... just not the sort of stunning scenery that draws you to a place. Each of the tracks is likely to be a touch too long and a whole lot too repetitive to reward paying real attention, whilst having one feature that lodges quite pleasantly in the ear and would have you nodding along as you chat to someone over a glass of wine, or whatever.

The most annoying thing to date (and I am in to track 4 now) is the voice samples - presumably from film or radio. I like the technique, and artful use of such is a feature of some other music that will feature in this blog if I maintain momentum - such as Public Service Broadcasting or Lemon Jelly - but I do not get the feeling that the craft in choosing these samples and matching them to the music is to the same high level here. It is a debut, and I feel that it shows. Every track sounds like it could have been done slightly better by a different artist; the disc as a whole feels like it is constantly missing something. In many ways that is far more mean than is deserved. It is after all not unpleasant, it is fundamentally inoffensive after all. It is just that I am now halfway through Common Knowledge and I do not feel that anything has changed since I hit play, other than it is half an hour later.

There is, of course, a lot more variation to the tracks than I make out. Each one does have a subtly different flavour of inoffensive downbeat shuffle going on... wait, I have just hit one that breaks the mould a little. It's actually a mildly offensive downbeat shuffle instead due to the harshness of snares and a very drone-like overlay. It is just that there is not enough variation within the tracks, nothing that grabs attention and makes you interested in how it plays out or fits with the other elements. Again, this makes it pretty good background music but I cannot help but feel that "good background music" is a goal that any self-respecting musician should shoot for if not explicitly providing a soundtrack or accompaniment piece.

At least the beats have got slight more interesting as the disc goes on and give me something positive to focus on when listening. Unfortunately the melodies have got less interesting at about the same rate, and those vocal samples are still there. As I am being disparaging here, I find it amusing that WMP is actually uprating each track as it plays, by virtue of being left to play right through. I have not got the heart to correct the mistake.

I just hit Time is the Enemy and actually I am enjoying this track a lot more. It is still best characterised as inoffensive downbeat shuffle but there are more layers here, more little things to draw the ear. Beats and melody both have reasonable patterns and there is just that touch extra going on that moves it into the realm of me listening rather than absorbing. It isn't a great track, but it is a good one. Comfortably the best on the disc so far and all the better for not dragging out too long.

I think the real problem with shuffle is that actually it is really hard to do well. I cannot help but think that the percussion on In the Key of Blue reminds me of something. I think it is Three by Massive Attack, but the resemblance is slight. It has kept a higher level of interest than the earlier tracks though, so I feel safe saying that this album gets better as it goes. Meaning closes the album; I feel relieved to have got here; it is classic shuffle, terminated by a vocal sample which actually makes the end feel quite sudden. And welcome.

The 5th Exotic will not be a casualty; the appeal of the shuffle for a shuffled library is strong enough for it to remain. It will never be listened to like this again though. Inoffensive downbeat shuffle has become another unique LastFM tag.

Update: after sitting through An Announcement to Answer and getting through a number more albums, cutting stuff I liked more than this, I have decided to get rid of most of The 5th Exotic, only keeping the two tracks I had something (even mildly) positive to say about.