Art music barely contained by a smiling straightjacket
Phil Avetxori | 09/22/2002
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For all its pretensions to scorched-earth futurism, underground dance music can be an aesthetically conservative subculture(this observation is based on years of experience as a dj/producer). So it's always nice to know that there are cats like Cristian Vogel around, hip to techno's playful energy and rhythmic pragmatism, but willing to push boudaries without letting the elements fall out of orbit completely. A Brit of Chilean descent trained in academic electronic composition, Vogel's work is in the best South American tradition of blending high modernism with pop forms without parody or disrespect of either. These eccentric grooves sound like musique concrete master Francois Bayle breaking into a spontaneous jig while his shocked INA-GRM colleagues spray hot coffee all over a blinking HAL-like mainframe. Which is to say that this album is loads of fun, with tweaked Latinisms bubbling up all over the place and stretchy-straw popping streamlined to ride the shakeshakeshake-a-shakin' grooves on the Paradise Garage to IRCAM express. There's none of the cliched techno/house elements or overworked samples:for once the famous description of techno as "something you've never heard before" rings true. This disc has some of the funkiest avant-garde sounds since electric Miles, and is especially recommended to IDM stiffs skeptical of anything that moves. Thank you, Mr. Vogel, for alleviating my near complete boredom with dance music."