Description:
Amazon.co.uk Review
This 1998 collection of remixes, early singles and two new tracks complements Modus Operandi, the first album by Rupert Parkes, a.k.a. Photek. At the opposite end of the drum & bass spectrum to the jazzy R&B tinged music of Mercury Prize winner Roni Size and his ensemble of musicians and vocalists, these austere, almost minimalist compositions--often stripped down to intricate percussion, the occasional bass line, plus a few ghostly sonic embellishments--invite the listener to engage with the up-close textures of rhythm and timbre, and this approach is rigourously maintained by the various remixers (a
Amazon.co.uk Review
This 1998 collection of remixes, early singles and two new tracks complements Modus Operandi, the first album by Rupert Parkes, a.k.a. Photek. At the opposite end of the drum & bass spectrum to the jazzy R&B tinged music of Mercury Prize winner Roni Size and his ensemble of musicians and vocalists, these austere, almost minimalist compositions--often stripped down to intricate percussion, the occasional bass line, plus a few ghostly sonic embellishments--invite the listener to engage with the up-close textures of rhythm and timbre, and this approach is rigourously maintained by the various remixers (among whom are Doc Scott and Peshay). "Rings of Saturn" weaves in a sample from Pharaoh Saunders, and is perhaps the most immediately appealing cut here with its almost joyfully buoyant bassline. The early singles paved the way for a more cerebral, less dancefloor-orientated approach to drum & bass (a legacy taken up by Squarepusher, amongst others) and Photek's avant-garde sensibilities, as the title suggests, are structural, almost scientific in nature: rhythmic details rather than melodic hooks are what drive the music. The result is a record which, if a little ascetic on first encounter, has an appealing and rewarding complexity. --Burhan Tufail
From Amazon.com
Like the best drum & bass musicians, Photek explores the nuances of the rhythms that most jungle musicians, blinded by dance-floor strobe lights, take for granted. His rarefied electronic tracks rarely overlap more than a handful of discrete sonic elements. On "The Water Margin," for example, cetacean burbles bounce amid an extended percussion solo and a lone, vaporous, synthetic woodwind. And that's it. The composerly sense of musical development Photek brings to these skeletal constructions has lent his earliest recordings a reputation as the blueprint of avant-garde drum & bass. Four of those early recordings, "The Water Margin" among them, are collected on Form & Function, which also includes six appropriately uncluttered remixes (by J Majik, Doc Scott, Peshay, and others) and two brand new tracks, one spooky, one funky. --Marc Weidenbaum
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Manufacturer: Science
Release date: 14 September 1998
Number of discs: 1
EAN: 0724384632823 UPC: 724384632823
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