Though I heard interesting material from Cyclotimia before, their previous mcd on Monopoly Records could not enteratin me at all. So I was curious what the deo from Moscow would come up with this time. They operate on the experimental border of electronic, neoclassical and ambient music. Their tracks often resemble collages, rich of samples.
‘Leaviathan’ directly sets the tone, combining a classical foundation with a religious sermon (by the late Pope John Paul II) and spacy electronic bleeps. A very moving track is ‘Shelter’, again with a religious speech, lovely cinematic textures and a mechanical, industrial rhythm. More tracks seem to combine archaic, sacred elements with sounds from our modern industrial/consumer society.
The wide variation in styles, moods and sounds is one of the most striking features on this album. From the hammering percussion of ‘Meltdown’ to the hiphop-like groove of ‘Market report’ or the uptempo IDM breakbeats of ‘Algorithms’. In many cases the music is combined with news broadcasts and other textual samples, often creating an apocalyptic atmosphere.
Conclusion: a diverse and fascinating album. A nice bonus feature is the video ‘Same place’, full of images from the USA: skyscrapers and Wall Street, the attack on the WTC, mass media, the capitalist rat race…