Minilogue - Animals

[abasio]

Minilogue

Animals 2CD

Cocoon Recordings

23 Apr 2008

Minimal & Ambient

 

Tracklist

 

Upbeat CD

1-01 Yesterday Bells (2:00)

1-02 Cow, Crickets And Clay (7:08)

1-03 Hitchhiker’s Choice (7:20)

1-04 Loud (3:37)

1-05 We All (6:55)

1-06 33000 Honeybees (8:36)

1-07 Jamaica (9:57)

1-08 View Of A Juggling Ball (3:09)

1-09 Giant Hairy Super Monsters (7:18)

1-10 Hypnotized (8:31)

1-11 Animals (7:14)

1-12 In A Distance (7:49)

 

Ambient CD

2-01 Old Water (5:22)

2-02 Windows (4:07)

2-03 City Lights (4:57)

2-04 Six Arms And One Leg (5:54)

2-05 Swamp Op (4:27)

2-06 In The Shade Of The Sun (5:47)

2-07 Stations I (4:26)

2-08 Stations II (4:59)

2-09 Stations III (3:50)

2-10 Even The Wind Seemed In Deep Sleep (6:22)

2-11 Europhonia (8:09)

2-12 Feeling In Spring Beside The Dressing Table (7:42)

2-13 Seconds (Colour & Sound) (6:43)

2-14 Outro (2:14)

 

Minilogue aka Son Kite are back with a double CD. This album was long awaited but kind of came out of nowhere. After years of waiting suddenly there was this beautiful looking double CD. The artwork is very nice & is a good representation of the music, smooth and weird!

 

Upbeat CD

 

1. Yesterday Bells

The first CD starts out like the track title suggests with sounds that are not quite bells but that is hard to describe as anything else. The beat is very relaxed and the atmosphere manages to sound like smooth static.

 

2. Cow, Crickets & Clay

As if it's mixed you can hear the beat & bass of this track in the last 10 seconds of the opener. This is another smooth intro with glitchy noises are kept to the background and the steady beat just flows nicely. The glitchy sounds become more prominent later on being a mix of what sounds like steel drums, electronic cows mooing, sci-fi blips & samples. In the latter part of the track the beat picks up as does the melodic blips that almost seem to play a melody. Almost.

 

3. Hitchhiker's Choice

More melodious from the start this one. The very light simple melody almost sounds as if it is hummed by a robot. The beat is a little stronger now & we are definitely in a techy mood. The electro sounds are disjointed and cool. They play with your head and almost sound acidic. But a smooth shiny acid. Some really nice sci-fi sounds give a retro feel & I picture myself in some 60's science fiction show saving the universe from Daleks or Ming the Merciless or something equally cool.

 

4. Loud

Without being unpleasantly so, the volume does seem higher on this track. The bass is turned up & where my woofer was before sounding smooth it is not rolling with wooden bass static. Very nice sound. The atmospheric background melody is nice as are the muttered samples. The melody when it comes to the front is light but manages to twist & turn interestingly.

 

5. We All

Once again you can hear this track coming in from the end of the last track. A big rush of spacey atmosphere & what in my mind sounds like a stifled warning klaxon gives me a crippled space ship as a setting for this track. Picture a metallic hallway with the main lights cut out but emergency lights flickering on and off. A dark powerful sound seems to push against the edges of my mind like an psychic alien entity trying to push it's way in. The trippy twisted sample feels like they have succeeded & my mind has been torn open ready for the void.

 

6. 33,000 Honeybees

From deep space to right back to nature. Birds sing in the background but they twist unnaturally like we are in some alien forest. As the birds fade a steady beat comes in with some analogue static in the background. Different layers of beats twist the atmosphere as it things are shuffling around us and the could be bird sounds come in and out creating a feeling of familiarity with the unknown. The beats & sci-fi sounds get glitchier as the track progresses adding a lot of energy to track. Even when most of the sounds disappear & we are just left with a few melodic beats you can feel the potential energy & the kick back in is so natural. Great stuff here.

 

7. Jamaica

The beat is tribal, the sounds of sea gull can be heard in the distance & the melodious part in the intro sounds almost magical as if it is falling down from the sky to cover us in a warm blanket. The strong bass sounds 3 minutes in sounds almost watery but like being hit hard by wall of water focused into a small point. Trippy sounds all around us with many different beats all twisting round each other and although there is no direct noises to make me think so I can help but feel like there is a party going on just out of sight but well within earshot. The melody at the end is like a winding down of the energy experienced earlier. Cool funky stuff.

 

8. View Of A Juggling Ball

This is a short Jazzy track, full of glitchy melody and soft beats with a shuffling undertone. The melodic sounds are twisted and warped and the bass is cool and funky. Overall it's a great if a little strange track, I would like to have seen where it went if it was longer though.

 

9. Giant Hairy Super Monster

Points must be given to the best track title this year but also as a standout on this CD. Giant Hairy Super Monster is a smooth cool funky ride through a city a night with the top down. The cool night air exciting your senses, the city lights twinkling like stars & the roar of the engine playing nicely under the music on the radio. This is the only track on the album that makes me want to dance. As I sit here writing I am compelled to bounce up and down. The melody is the nicest on the album to as it shifts up and down playfully, cuts itself up & twists around itself. Just the one layer of melody & and a melodious synth but they manages to feel much deeper. A great track here, best on the album & the best of its style I've heard in ages. Cool, funky, deep, melodic & so so smooth.

 

10. Hypnotized

Now this sounds to me like ambient with a beat. The background ambience is so soft & dreamy & it lets me float away. Very monotonous and hypnotising as the title suggests. The beat is very steady & the other sounds change slowly. There are some parts that try to snap you out of your entranced state like the sharp funky synth that slices through every now and again and the sample but overall you can just let your mind drift & images come to you. I imagine something different each time, as I write this I can picture an alien ocean of a strangely familiar colour looking up at an alien sky. Very nice.

 

11. Animals

The title track sums up the first CD perfectly for me. It is what people call minimal but has a whole loud of sounds going on, so it's not cheesy & the melodies are light but it is still very intricate & involved. There are cool funky sounds, shuffling beats, sharp slightly acid tinged melodies and a bassline that runs through your body and makes it tingle. Techy sounds and static glitch come in and out and it at times sounds smooth & other times rough. Great maximal minimal.

 

12. In a Distance

We round of the 1st CD with a very atmospheric number. The oscillating drone in the background feels cold & the sparse beats and lack of melody apart from a light disco sun sounding like the image of twin suns setting over alien mountains. I can picture myself sat on a beach with the tide washing up strange artifacts on to the beach in front of. Fossils come to life & scuttle away and the light from the suns makes a lush warm sound round the cold atmosphere behind me.

 

The first CD is great, it's techy melodious & very intricate. As I said in the description of the Track Animals I never understand why this is called minimal. There is nothing minimal about if you listen it's just not cheesy. It's very delicate & intricate and it is jam packed with sounds, layers of beats & layers of melodies. I feel sorry for those that can't hear them Do they have ears? Not minimal at all! Maximal

 

Ambient CD

 

1. Old Water

Old Water starts with what to me sounds like the sound of bells floating over a lake. Later in the track it sounds like a flute and back to bells but always I get the feeling of an old misty lake. Great ambient start.

 

2. Windows

Windows is a little more melodic at the start and it seems as if it will continue but without quite noticing it strips down to a cold sparse track. Great Sci-Fi sample about finding life as we don't know it twisted at the start but clears up. The whole feeling is cold and barren and a little bit spacey with the big sounds near the end.

 

3. City Lights

This track is more rhythmical with a soft bassline and crackles of static coming in a steady times. Rushes of spacey synths give it a night time edge and what sounds like very sparing use of some ethnic instruments make it feel more earthly. Quite odd.

 

4.Six Arms And One Leg

This one was an instant stand out probably because it is less minimal than the other ambient tracks here. There is a long sample describing a very strange creature. Even though it instantly stood out and has a long sample it has stood the test of many listens. There is much more to it than first meets the eye. Nice relaxed beats, nice simple melodies almost hidden and an atmospheric background drone oversees all the natural sounds. If you listen carefully you can hear the doppler effect of a motorbike riding by. Very good track.

 

5. Swamp Op

Stark sporadic beats and a long simple bass are all we are given apart from a bit of glitch here and there. A Jazzy Sax, rough rusty beats the creaking sound of some ancient door. Sparse as it is it's pretty enjoyable.

 

6. In The Shade Of The Sun

Some more melodic sounds here with very minimal use of what could be a sitar and soft hi-hats as percussion. Something that sounds like a howling beast wails very softly in the background in the first part adding a lot of atmosphere but all background sounds are stripped leaving a weak middle but it picks up with the guitar sounds at the end.

 

7. Stations I

This has such a nice warm melody I want to wrap myself up in it on this chilly December morning. There is precious little else apart from melody but it is one of those melodies that sounds rhythmical. It's quite charming.

 

8. Stations II

The second part is not quite so warm with heavier and colder sounds. The melodic sounds are more prominent but sparse, only coming in occasionally. The beat sounds distant and tribal. The track seems to get darker the further it goes.

 

9. Station III

The third part has the strongest beats and the least atmosphere. I was expecting a continuation of the first two parts with something darker but while it does pack in many spacey and glitchy sounds I just don't feel it.

 

10. Even The Wind Seemed In Deep Sleep

The atmosphere I was expecting is here with dark bells tolling in the background and a darkish drone creating the mood. Some brief jazzy elements make me picture a rundown basement lounge with a single band member making a half hearted effort to keep the spirit alive. A very nice atmosphere.

 

11. Europhonia

A big deep oceanic sound marks the start of this track and the music is deep. Deep and bleak and touching on darkness. A vocal sample twisted so I can only make out European City. Deep dull sounds falling and a glittering melody rising puts me in mind of being under the sea, deep enough to be dark but shallow enough that you can just see the light glittering on the surface.

 

12. Feeling In Spring Beside The Dressing Table

I don't quite get the feeling of summer right away from this track, the intro is more wintry but the melody pushes the winter cried like the first day of spring. Nice warm rhythms with a lingering feeling of cold. Very nice.

 

13. Seconds (Colour & Sound)

The ticking of a clock reminds me that time is running short. The beats keep this feeling and as the track goes on the ticking seems to get quicker and the feeling more urgent. The guitars in the middle help relax it a little and melody is pretty soothing but the ticking is always in the back of my mind.

 

14. Outro

We leave animals with a smooth bright outro. Nought but some melodic ambience to smooth over a troubled mind.

 

The ambient CD is also very nice, more minimal than the minimal CD with lots of spaces between the sounds to allow your mind to fill in the gaps, that's why it can sound so different on each playing. Apart from the tracks that instantly stand out all the tracks grow on you, even the less minimal ones have deeper levels to discover on later listens.

 

A great double CD then, minimal, progressive & ambient lovers should enjoy this one.

[amphiton]

BTW, these are the same guys that produced under Son Kite alias, if someone didn't know. Also, if you liked the second CD, be sure to check out IMPS - Bring Out The Imps (Mule, 2008) an album they released with Ian Chaplin and Philip Rex, who produce progressive psytrance with their Decoy side-project and who actually are jazz musicians. Music itself is a bit more edgy and experimental.

 

Minilogue's Animals double-album doesn't need any comments, it's essential.

 

Check nice vids @ YouTube:

[p(sy)ayam]

i loved the videos

[NEMO.BOFH]

Minilogue aka Son Kite are back with a double CD. This album was long.....

BTW, these are the same guys that produced under Son Kite alias, if someone didn't know. Also, if you liked the second CD, be sure to check out

Yeahp, people should learn how to read

 

And the album gets better and better by each listen. Just like the new Extrawelt

[frix]

looks like abasio is on a review spree

Thanks for your effort!

[Jeller]

listening to it now, very nice minimal side.. the giant hairy supe monster track is nice indeed!!

 

full review coming soon

[kathmandu]

Check nice vids @ YouTube:

if they are from the Upbeat Cd, I wonder how the Ambient Cd sounds

[yerg]

I wonder why guys from Minilogue/Son Kite decided to go strictly minimal (even too much) on this release. Some of the first releases from Minilogue were absolutely catchy techy themes with lots of variation and so on. However this release shows that guys become calmer and calmer in their sound - though i haven't heard newer 12" releases yet.

Upbeat cd is very relaxed and even lazy - somewhat black and white sound, that is one beat one melody. Only Jamaica, 33,000 Honeybees and Animals stand out as true dancefloor diggers.

Ambient cd drowns and has no will for life and keeps falling into the depths of cold and thick water untill the shadows of death cover it totally.

 

I would give it 7/10 and can't say it is boring, it has its moments. But when there is sun shinning and birds singing i would not risk to put this on.

[5meohd]

^^ the beautiful difference in opinion!

 

I would absolutely put this album on full blast on a bright and sun shiny day! I think this is what I would consider a mature statement in modern electronica... not that psytrance is for the imature.. but being that they already rocked that scene, wouldn't we be bitching if they had just followed psy trends?? instead they followed where electronica has went in there area-minimal techno-and proved that they can do it with soul and style!!!!

 

 

I do agree there is a somber chilly (as in cold/ice) feeling to the album, possible directly related to my interpretation of the artwork, but sometimes in the heat of a summer day some ice cold beats will serve well!!

 

 

thanks for making such a fantastic album!

 

 

I must admit, I'm now realizing I need to get back to disc two as i've only heard it once so the above is to be considered for the first disc!

[Yard Hippie]

Funny, I was listening to this only last week and found it extremely warm. Only the ambient cd though, maybe that was it. Great release but for some reason I hardly ever put it on