Unsigned: Radium88 � Artificial Life

Web: www.radium88.net

When I first opened this I was faced with a cd case that looked for all the world like some middle of the road psy-trance album; but delving a little further into the package I discovered a press release sheet which described the music therein as �a deranged genetic experiment� and goes on to list many types of music it draws from but isn�t like. All this replete with kitsch cyber-noir black and white photo of the three people responsible. I�m warily intrigued. I put the CD in the player...

It�s Lush in space. Nondescript chords and insipid electronic sounds sit beneath an airy floaty female vocal which sounds like it�s really missing the choir it was stolen from. That said, it�s not unpleasant and the strings are quite nice. The rest of it is completely forgettable though. And that snare sound is shit.

�Icarus� lifts things slightly, bringing a more trancey vibe which is actually quite nice. The vocals sound better on this, & so do the strings which really make the track come alive. It�s not exactly music to dance to, despite the housey drum pattern. More likely something you�d listen to on your back. The change into the chorus works really well, actually. It�s a shame the song�s so flatly structured...as far as I could tell it didn�t even have a middle-eight, it just goes verse-chorus-verse-chorus-verse-chorus. I wonder if the whole album�s going to carry on like this?

Nope.

Aaaargh! Beware, beware track 3! I don�t even know what to say about this...I can�t tell whether the male singer�s taking the piss, but it isn�t funny. It�s like a song you�d hear on a primetime sketch show; comedy music by people who aren�t funny or musicians. I don�t think I like the backing much either, but I can�t tell because I keep getting distracted by how much I hate the vocal.

�Gypsies in the house� is a terrible title, but it�s the best track so far, combining a great breakbeat with good electronic sounds & evocative strings (these must be from a real instrument, there�s no way you�d get a synth to sound that alive). Not completely sure what it�s trying to express, but I like it...for all of two minutes, until they kill it with a cabaret piano riff. It quickly returns to the previous section, but not quickly enough. Irritatingly, it repeats the first part for just long enough to remind me how good it is, before taking us back to piano hell. Why did they do this? I really really like the other bit, it�s something I�ve never heard before & it works really well. If only they�d concentrated on developing the first part into a whole track.

And now we�re into Portishead territory (�Headlong�), perhaps with touches of Pram thrown in. Second time around, I manage not to bang my head against the desk when the drum & bass beat comes in, but I still don�t like it. I�m amazed by how many people think they can grab a whole element from d&b and incorporate it into their otherwise unrelated piece. Has no one learnt the lesson from �Little Wonder�? Again, it�s irritating because the rest of the track�s quite nice. And again I�m going to complain about the song writing, because they only ever seem to write two sections to any of their songs.

How many tracks left then? Eight. So we get another comedy track (�Phatt Wah�, someone kill that singer), another one with a cool beat but awful piano & synths (�The people with the power�), another Lush in space track but with harmonica instead of violin (I�ve decided I quite like the female singer�s voice; I thought it was quite flat at first, but it�s not that bad), a rather nice spacey-dub number (�Chances Are�) which unfortunately breaks into a mid-nineties indie track halfway through. Without this bit, it would be quite good; they�ve got the vibe just right. Then there�s a bizarre track combining slowed-down surf guitar with THOSE pianos and a sample I�m sure I recognise from somewhere � possibly Michael Oldfield, but I could be completely wrong. The juxtaposition of the male & female singers on this track highlight a glaring bifurcation which runs the length of this album, namely the floaty female-led bits which are nice, if not amazing all the time, and the male-led bits which make me want to smash this cd into a thousand pieces. I�m struggling to reconcile the two into one band, but anyway, next up there�s an instrumental track based around the same kind of uninspiring spoken samples that have appeared on several previous tracks. The music again is disappointingly cabaret-tinged. Then of course there�s the obligatory �spooky UFO samples track� (UFOs are so 1997, haven�t they heard?), and another drum&bass-lite track with awfully compressed drum sounds. Now that I�ve noticed that, I reckon I smell �Reason� on this CD...all the electronic sounds are thin and weedy, and compressed to fuck. Some people seem to think that Reason is the saviour of computer music, but I�ve yet to hear a single track made on it which doesn�t sound like a home keyboard demo (you know, the ones with 99 different sounds to choose from, and built in speakers because only people who actually care about making music would buy a proper amp...same goes for Reason, only people who actually want to make music that sounds good bother buying hardware synths nowadays).

Yeah, so anyway that�s yer lot. What can I say? When they get it right they get it very right, but some judicious pruning is seriously overdue. Oh yeah, it also occurred to me that they�d make quite a good live show, & maybe that�s what they�re focussed on. I�d be a lot happier having spent a couple of quid to see them in my local Firkin and had a laugh dancing to that bloke�s stupid singing than having spent an hour sitting here slagging them off, but I guess that�s life.

Michael Miller