Omar S makes electronic music. And he’s from Detroit, ok? So, inevitably, he’s worried about staying underground, he’s got an attitude, he’s suspicious of the music press, and he releases much of his music on his own small label (FXHE) that has a kind of cult status.
On this mix CD for Fabric, Omar-S mixes together a bunch of his own previously released tracks for FXHE, alongside four new tracks that appear for the first time on this CD. The music here is straight up machine music, wearing its debt to Detroit techno pioneers on its sleeve. He’s also spoken of the influence of video games on his music, and there are some nice sounds here in tracks like ‘Strider’s World’ that’ll have you flashing back to your younger days in the arcade. The mix peaks about two thirds of the way through with ‘Psychotic Photosynthesis’, the track which really helped expose Omar-S to a wider audience. With the deft layering of a few simple sounds and parts, this track takes its time to build up to a wonderful climax that really gets inside your consciousness at volume. The CD also contains a couple of his collaborations with Shadow Ray as Oasis, also originally released on FXHE.
So, there are some enjoyable tunes here for sure, and it’s great to have a bunch of them now available in one place programmed and mixed by the artist. I just wish I hadn’t read the publicity material that was sent out with the disk before I reviewed it. While lauding Omar-S for having “no attachment to hype”, the press release simultaneously claims that his music is “shaking up the [Detroit] formula in unimaginable ways”. Not for me – the best tracks here are great examples of the genre, but I’m not really sure they’re pushing in bold new directions. And apparently, one of the reasons for him not including any tracks by other artists on this mix is because “over the last year I haven’t really been feeling anybody’s music, there’s been no music that I feel. I’d rather do a mix for fabric that’s all my own shit…”. Shame about the attitude, really – is this what it means to be “an artist, a DJ, an outsider, and a radical in an otherwise indifferent music world”?
Kurt Iveson
