Reviewed by Eric Saeger
This first proper US release from the UK DJ duo is a mix saluting the Fixed night, the diverse weekly party at New York’s Tribeca Grand Hotel. Listener reviews of the pair’s work are usually quite mixed, giving the impression that SMD’s attention is as deficient as that of a kid trying to study calculus after he just got dumped by his girlfriend. But for the first 6 songs here – past the Kraftwerkian intro of Brain Machine’s Eternal Night – there’s clearly a common thread, that being fractal hypnosis, from the beauty of Conrad Schnitzler’s Ballet Statique to Etienne Jaumet’s glo-fi-tinted For Falling Asleep. Anyway, yes, rackety Justice-worshipping sounds are still the rage on SoundCloud, so the noise patrol drops in with Andre Walter’s Malphas (not that I have any problem with the squalling baby sample, being that it single-handedly made Foetus’s Thaw album unforgettable) and takes over from there, moving into SMD’s own woozy rub of U Can Dance from DJ Hell, a guy I can always live without. Slowly everything melts into madness: android-loving electro-house from Paul Woolford (False Prophet), some chimp-running-through-the-jungle silliness in Phillip Sherbourne’s Salt and Vinegar, and so on, highlighted by the pair’s own crazily trippy Nerve Salad. What ultimately strikes me is how brilliantly this would work at a velvet-rope joint and how poorly it would serve as commuter background.
Grade: B-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9WRrbpTZUU
