Wicked Beat Sound System – Dreaming (Wicked Beat Records / Inertia)

This latest, fifth album from Australian electronic collective Wicked Beat Sound System ‘Dreaming’ certainly occupies distinctly different conceptual territory to its predecessor, 2006’s ‘Hydromajestik.’ In this case, the seeds of ‘Dreaming’ were first sown back in 2003, when WBSS mainman Damien Robinson was asked to compose the music for The Sydney Dreaming Festival, the main centrepiece being a theatrical adaption of the Australian Indigneous rain maker creation story. After the actual performance of the event itself, which featured several indigenous dance groups including Bangarra and Doonooch along with vocalists Emma and Casey Donovan, this recorded collection represents the best elements taken from the various sessions. Opening track ‘Overture’ certainly hints at the widescreen ambient sense of ‘sweep’ that underpins much of this album, with the sampled noise of massed crickets proviing to be a suitably potentous counterpoint to the distant rumbles of thunder and deep didgeridoo textures that follow – indeed, there’s a sense conjured of the sorts of epic desert landscapes seen in travel-film classic ‘Baraka.’ In many senses though, it’s moments here where the electronics retreat to the sidelines and the indigenous voices are given centre stage, such as ‘Doonooch Welcome’ that prove to be the most effective here, with the triphop centred rhythms in evidence on the Emma Donovan-fronted ‘Miminga’ dragging some of the atmosphere away, in favour of a distinctly more coffee table-oriented trajectory. Still, few will be able to disagree that this is easily WBSS’ most deep and enveloping collection to date.