Merck Fragments

I can safely say I’ve been waiting for this album for 6 years. Geoff White’s initial Aeroc album on Ghostly was solid, had some good ideas. I saw Geoff play an Aeroc live set at Decibel Festival in 2005, and it blew me away, I came back frothing about it to some friends (it probably also helped that it was played after an awesome Lusine ambient set that also sent me frothing (and was the source for a lot of the material on his Language Barrier album on Hymen). Nonetheless, after bragging about the show, we all sat waiting 6 years for this album to come out, so there was really no way it could live up to those expectations. It is still a pretty good album. Excellent to throw on during a bright Sunday afternoon around the house. Its well balanced, has a great vibe amongst most of the tracks, and a good energy about it. Guitar electronics need a careful practitioner usually, as I find that many non-electronic musicians, coming into the electronic stuff, use the machines in an awkward way. Geoff comes from the other way, so his stuff really flows (to my ears at least). Definitely an album to check out (Merck reference; definitely check it if you dug the Tiki Obmar, Lateduster, and Tstewart stuff).

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This is an awesome album. Yes, I can safely say that all Merck fans should really dig this one. Don’t let the weird french singing in the first track throw you off, its about to get riggedy ruff.

It progresses really nicely through lush beaty material overlaid perfectly with soundscapes, delicious deru percussion, and the melodies that gets in many-a-merck fans heads. This is the kind of stuff that I hoped to release in my Merck days. Heavy on the beats and bass, stuff I can’t stop nodding my head to. He combines the best of Autechre and Dj Premier, in a subtle, seamless, and original way. There aren’t any standout tracks for me to point to initially, because the whole thing is strong, its screaming for a straight through listen, no angst to ffwd a track, or repeatedly backtrack, it flows excellently. Its got a good strong start with a few block-knocker tracks then it slows down a little into Walk and Fadeaway, which remind me of Carter Burwell stuff (his soundtrack to In Bruges). I’m guessing maybe he was listening to some of his stuff around the time of making this, just like you can hear in a few of Proem’s tracks when he had started to listen really heavily to Thomas Newman stuff (his Tiki Obmar remix in particular). Nonetheless, it continues on to finish off with 2 ambient pieces, and sandwiched in between them is Cottonmouth Lothario, with its excellent midway breakdown. Ok, I’ll stop hyping, if you didn’t catch this one already, please do, cheers to Ben & Mush, this kind of music belongs on the label that Aesop Rock started off on. Futuristic hip-hop indeed.

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I’m very picky about my dubstep, post-dubstep, bass music. Whatever you want to call it. I enjoy the stuff that tends towards the IDM edge (with nods to Autechre), or to actual dub, or to dubstep’s roots in the Drum & Bass scene. I know this album covers a swath of genres (as only Travis could), from footwork, to juke, to post-dubstep, to (post?)IDM. I’m coming at it with a skeptical ear towards things labeled dubstep and towards Travis’s new music (I wasn’t really feeling a lot of Want To 1 2). But straight up, I really enjoy this album.

With the exception of Come1 (don’t really dig this one most of the time), I’ve listened straight through this album a lot, which I can rarely say about many albums recently. I’ll guess that Travis and Mike P’s ears are tuned quite the same as mine, as a possible explanation about why I’m so into this one. As I really didnt expect to be, its been an awesome surprise for me. Travis can attest that I’ve never much been into vocals in music, or even vocal samples in songs at all. He somehow found a way to slip them past me, and get me vibing to music with straight RnB vocal samples in ways I never expected. Hell, I regularly go 20-30mph over the speed limit vibing out listening to The Statue on the highway.

I can see that some Merck fans are not gonna feel this direction for Travis’s music, but I have to say that if I had seen an album like this coming, I would have kept Merck going as long as needed to see it come out on the label (that being said, I am proud that Mike P has picked it up for his excellent imprint). I’ll accept that this is definitely a different move for the “Machinedrum” moniker than his diehard Merck fans can be comfortable with for the most part. But the other option would be for him to run the glitch-hop sound into the ground with a half dozen albums slowly getting more and more forgettable, as Prefuse did. I much prefer he switches up to interesting new material like this, even if he whiffs with a few tracks along the way. This one is definitely in my top 10 of 2011. Bravo Trav.

PS. He has a new EP coming out next week on Luckyme, entitled SXLND. Like his last one for them, it has its cool moments, but you need to accept that the music and the release is being crafted more for the dancefloor, than for the headphones/bedroom as his Merck stuff was.

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Amazon Digital Release & Sound Clips