review: planet boelex - never change (ep) [od079]
planet boelex is one of the few netlabel artists i'd actually heard of before starting this podcast. i have very little experience with netlabel artists and thus this project has a two-pronged purpose for me:
1) expose myself to music by people like me
2) expose everyone else to it, too.
digging through netlabel 'back issues' for content turned out to be a much more difficult task than i'd previously assumed. my happiness when i found the planet boelex track featured in episode 1 of glique was unmeasurable. i honestly searched for 12 total hours looking for thirty minutes of music that i felt worthy of my first episode and comfortable stamping my personal seal of approval on. pb was a great find.
as such, it brings me great pleasure to have the opportunity to feature planet boelex in the first text-only installment of glique by means of a review of his latest effort, never change, newly released on ogredung's [don't ask, don't tell] netlabel.
planet boelex has found a delicate balance with this release. the beats are chill, easy going, structured while still fresh and mildly unpredictable. like many idm fans, for me the percussion is really what makes or breaks a track in so many cases, and this 3-track ep is full of clicky goodness in that regard. but much to planet boelex's credit, that's not the highlight of this release. while so many idm artists seem to concentrate almost exclusively on the drum work (thus creating the expectation for incredibly intricate drum work noted above), pb has put a serious amount of effort into the chromatic side of things.
the overall sound is rather atmospheric in nature, but not quite in the same theatrical fashion as other things along the same lines that i've been hearing lately. the title track, never change, opens the ep with heavily effected vocal samples layered over and under noisy synths drenched in a pristine reverb, panning slowly from one speaker to the next. a dark bassline creeps in, staticy without the noise (somehow?). you kind of get lost in the intro...by the time the drums kick in you hardly notice because the song's already taken you away somewhere. it's superbly dark, the whole production. layers of strategicly placed sounds adorn the entire track, which manages to remain largely the same throughout it's 6:38 duration but somehow never seems to loop. fans of the more chaotic side of idm will find solace in the dissonance offered by the occassional accidental in the lead sequence. it's really quite well done.
track two, beaver tactics, picks up in a similar fashion, clicky percussion punctuating lush, panning pads which breathe a certain tension. on a side note, i learned long ago never to try and understand the names of songs in this and related genres, but this one really has me wondering. this song keeps it a little more ambient (but by definition only) than the one before it, shying away from things like bass drums for most of the duration. the pads are really what carry this track all the way to the six minute mark when the beat starts trying to steal the thunder with help from the bassline. the pads fight back, knocking the drums back into whatver depths from which they surfaced, but they eventually succumb and the track swells into something more concrete. after all the buildup to get to this point, the ending seems a bit abrubt, but that's not really much of a criticism.
and now it's time for a change with planet bee, the third and final track of this 23ish minute ep. this is the most structured of the songs, sporting a dark but groovy bass line with very defined and almost upbeat drums to help carry it along. it soon breaks down into a more melodic and serious sounding piece, minor keying it's way to your heart, but not for long, as it picks back up into it's happy-memory-of-something-you-lost sort of sound. the contrast in this track is nice, as is the use of negative space in the lead.
this is a good, solid release. my single consistent complaint is that the drums could stand to be louder. all of the meldoies are great...they evoke a lot of feeling in a relatively short amount of time, but i do think that that punctuation that the drums could provide could be enhanced by a little boost on the drum channel. some might say the use of reverb was a little over the top. i could go either way on that, personally. i like it how it is. it'd be nice with less, too.
all in all, well done. i look forward to hearing more from this artist in the future.
[ never change ep - downloads and streams ]
1) expose myself to music by people like me
2) expose everyone else to it, too.
digging through netlabel 'back issues' for content turned out to be a much more difficult task than i'd previously assumed. my happiness when i found the planet boelex track featured in episode 1 of glique was unmeasurable. i honestly searched for 12 total hours looking for thirty minutes of music that i felt worthy of my first episode and comfortable stamping my personal seal of approval on. pb was a great find.
as such, it brings me great pleasure to have the opportunity to feature planet boelex in the first text-only installment of glique by means of a review of his latest effort, never change, newly released on ogredung's [don't ask, don't tell] netlabel.planet boelex has found a delicate balance with this release. the beats are chill, easy going, structured while still fresh and mildly unpredictable. like many idm fans, for me the percussion is really what makes or breaks a track in so many cases, and this 3-track ep is full of clicky goodness in that regard. but much to planet boelex's credit, that's not the highlight of this release. while so many idm artists seem to concentrate almost exclusively on the drum work (thus creating the expectation for incredibly intricate drum work noted above), pb has put a serious amount of effort into the chromatic side of things.
the overall sound is rather atmospheric in nature, but not quite in the same theatrical fashion as other things along the same lines that i've been hearing lately. the title track, never change, opens the ep with heavily effected vocal samples layered over and under noisy synths drenched in a pristine reverb, panning slowly from one speaker to the next. a dark bassline creeps in, staticy without the noise (somehow?). you kind of get lost in the intro...by the time the drums kick in you hardly notice because the song's already taken you away somewhere. it's superbly dark, the whole production. layers of strategicly placed sounds adorn the entire track, which manages to remain largely the same throughout it's 6:38 duration but somehow never seems to loop. fans of the more chaotic side of idm will find solace in the dissonance offered by the occassional accidental in the lead sequence. it's really quite well done.
track two, beaver tactics, picks up in a similar fashion, clicky percussion punctuating lush, panning pads which breathe a certain tension. on a side note, i learned long ago never to try and understand the names of songs in this and related genres, but this one really has me wondering. this song keeps it a little more ambient (but by definition only) than the one before it, shying away from things like bass drums for most of the duration. the pads are really what carry this track all the way to the six minute mark when the beat starts trying to steal the thunder with help from the bassline. the pads fight back, knocking the drums back into whatver depths from which they surfaced, but they eventually succumb and the track swells into something more concrete. after all the buildup to get to this point, the ending seems a bit abrubt, but that's not really much of a criticism.
and now it's time for a change with planet bee, the third and final track of this 23ish minute ep. this is the most structured of the songs, sporting a dark but groovy bass line with very defined and almost upbeat drums to help carry it along. it soon breaks down into a more melodic and serious sounding piece, minor keying it's way to your heart, but not for long, as it picks back up into it's happy-memory-of-something-you-lost sort of sound. the contrast in this track is nice, as is the use of negative space in the lead.
this is a good, solid release. my single consistent complaint is that the drums could stand to be louder. all of the meldoies are great...they evoke a lot of feeling in a relatively short amount of time, but i do think that that punctuation that the drums could provide could be enhanced by a little boost on the drum channel. some might say the use of reverb was a little over the top. i could go either way on that, personally. i like it how it is. it'd be nice with less, too.
all in all, well done. i look forward to hearing more from this artist in the future.
[ never change ep - downloads and streams ]
posted by lost.sync at 7:18 AM
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