R.A.M - Efficient Chips [Nexus]

[Guest Le Lotus Bleu]

R.A.M – Efficient Chips [Nexus Media]

 

R.A.M stands for Rampant Angry Men & is composed of Scorb (Yod Onsen) + N.R.S (Lek Black) Efficient Chips is their debut album mastered by Artifakt.

 

Tracklist :

 

1. Hash Brown

 

The track starts on an ambient opening feeling. Little by litlle an hiccuping lead emerge from the background to really reveal itself around 6’00 (it’s like if you wanna sneeze during 6’00 & uncounsciously you hold yourself. To be true my brain focused immediatly on this tone, nearly occulting the rest of the track’s structure although at start (at 1’45) it isn’t very perceptible.

A very special song with a weird feeling all over but which is very catchy.

 

2. Coming Back

 

Some Industrial tones seize of Coming Back, you have understand that we are now in a darker-lashing atmosphere. A strange twisted-muted voice (around 3’00), confers some mischievous feeling too in a brutal psycho environment ; normal don’t forget the Rampant Men are Angry …

 

3. Retard

 

Always wanted to have a call to a Rampant Angry Men (check the character on the cover to have an idea to what they look like, indeed seems they’re hybrid made of the aries’s shape coppled with the green colour of an alien) & listen his weird voice? In Retard your wish is fulfiled ok, whaou great isn’t it, but it’s possible you’ll encounter some psychopath musical intereferences during the conversation. Beware, all is weird here from the sound of the dial when you composed the number phone through the connection’s ring to the time delay (which means ‘retard’ in french) to get someone answering (not before really 3’35),beware !

 

4. Onion Rings

 

Some angelic vocalizes begin the tune. The rythmic is stomper with a melhancoly feeling with a small cosmic muffled touch happening at 1’45. The atmosphere gets more mysterious with the break at 3’00 & remains after , the climat evolves into more tense aspect ; Onion Rings is more feely oriented than previous ones.

 

5. Beer Nuts

 

I dig less this one, except the plaintive lead in the background at 4’00 that i noticed, the rest of the track is quite indifferent to me, pleasant to listen but not as entertaining as some other songs.

 

6. Deadly Nightshade

 

Come-back to some more brisk production, Deadly Nightshade without doubt is the most technoished influenced track of the album in my mind. You can check it by the rythmic, the hypnotic fast groove provided, & the use of cutting tones.

 

7. Dreamcatcher

 

This is a topical stuff, i mean Halloween is the 31 October & the track’s atmosphere is perfectly part of this party. It seems the dreamcatcher grab here a tormented dream here.The sweet melody contained in the intro & outro is very cinematographic as the global production by the way.

 

8. Sausage & Mashup

 

There’s something totally different in Sausage & Mashup,some fairy magical, paradisiac moments(like discovering an hidden fresh grotto with lake) unexpectedly alternated or combined with industrial tones. I think i’ve never heard something like this before, something that everybody should really experienced at least one time, sweet & harsh but worth enjoying it like life.

 

9. Ram Dub

 

Like if it was necessary, R.A.M want to proove us once again their musical diversity with some kind of crow flighting over your head (after 2’00). This sweet dubby production keep a close lead that the one used in the fairy parts of Sausage & Mashup, so it’s very easy to penetrate Ram Dub just after, like if it was its extension.

 

Highlights :1,3,7,8,9

 

When a heavy psychedelic trance band like R.A.M posses some classical music influences through harmonies it’s at the same time rare & nice to notice consequently also really interesting.

 

9/10 recommended

[Nefarious]

Scorb & NRS combine here to devastating efect. How could it be any less really??

 

Everything in its place, perfect build ups, structures and sounds abound. I really like the intro's. Floaty strings that haunt like a ghost in a castle, or is it a spaceship??

 

Not tits up mental holocaust wall of sound psychedelia but its fukin' trippy. Tough stuff.

Bloody class act.

[psydmt]

Hmmmmmm wasnt convinced that it was that good-seemed to a lot of bass and beat and nothing else-kind of like full-on minimal-I like a few more sounds in my trance-kind of nothing like Scorb if your wondering..

[Basilisk]

RAM - Efficient Chips [Nexus Media 2004] CD

 

Hash Brown

Coming Back

Retard

Onion Rings

Beer Nuts

Deadly Nightshade

Dreamcatcher

Sausage & Mashup

RAM Dub

[Sawfly]

Brain melting release. Been listening to this since it came out and still once in a while I have to give it another go. Top ten material for me

[Trance2MoveU]

"Give me an alternative."

 

Ummm...anything else?

 

Why are most of their track titles centered around food? Their 2nd album is even more so. Oh well. This meal now 10 years old and even though it was released by one of my all time favorite labels I gotta tell ya I'm still starving after listening to it. It does tend to favor a more minimal sound like psydmt said with a prominent kick and bassline with random sounds all around it. But that's what you get from a combo of Scorb and NRS. I liked the dark atmosphere of course and some of the eerie melodies (Onion Rings, Beer Nuts, Dreamcatcher), but for God's sake use a different bass patch. And while we're discussing the bass how about avoiding that galloping sh*t?

 

If you're gonna reference food so much may I suggest super sizing it? There's just not enough here to get that full belly feeling.

 

You sons o b*tches now you got me talking in food puns!

 

This album is screaming for a remix from the stable of Nexus Media artists.

 

Mdk