Having left their major label deal with Sony this latest album, a double album if you count the remix disc, is a welcome return to form. In many ways this record contains just as many pop elements as 2020 but they lurk behind soft vocoder vocals and moments straight out of Chris & Cosey’s 1984 album Songs Of Love & Lust. Playful melodies, rounded analogue synths and laidback electro beats dominate the first half of the album with the second half being taken up by more exotic ambient experiments with sub bass sounds. The obvious pop song Read To Me immediately brought the phrase ‘intelligensia dance music” to mind. On the second CD B(if)tek handed their tracks over to their friends to remix with varying results. The Emergency and Architecture In Helsinki play up the 80s elements with horrifying results whilst the better mixes come from Lawrence English with a uncharacteristically ambient acid sound circa 1993, and Clue To Kalo who introduces Kevin Shields’-like haze to Faded Blue, which outshines the internationals Scanner, Khan and Monolake.
Sebastian Chan
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