Chock-a-block with the giddy beat patterning of post-Detroit sunset electro, the shimmering humid air atmospherics of all your ’90s faves and usual suspects (Aphex, Bigeneric, B12, et al), and the dense, beatific kind of digital sound collage that makes circuits weep, the recording manages to feel prescient and contemporary all at once.
Thirteen times around the sun is the virtual equivalent of dog years in the genre of electronica; at this point, the ’90s seem quaint, well far off and dimly lit, quickly receding in the rear-view mirror by comparison. Advances in rhythm programming during the waning years of last century’s final decade, attached to a generation in love with the digitalia of plug-ins and plastic mice, bursting at the seams with ideas and the new means to realize them, resulted in a sonic ideology birthed of extreme imagination and sheer force of will.
The trio that comprise Signalform—Christoph Albert, Frederik Dahlke, and Ingo Zobel—arose in substance and influence from the aforementioned decade but didn’t join forces until 2006 to issue its debut, Private Channel on Shima Records. As did many discs labeled with the self-blemishing sobriquet of IDM, the disc appealed more to the few, the cognoscenti, than the many, and except for those in the know, subsequently sank without a trace. But glancing back in that rear-view mirror, reflected in the now-reissued edition of this sterling recording (and sporting three extra tracks to substantively prick up your ears), reveals how expertly conceived and executed an album Private Channel truly is.
Chock-a-block with the giddy beat patterning of post-Detroit sunset electro, the shimmering humid air atmospherics of all your ’90s faves and usual suspects (Aphex, Bigeneric, B12, et al), and the dense, beatific kind of digital sound collage that makes circuits weep, the recording manages to feel prescient and contemporary all at once. It reminds us jaded souls that however electronic music was mutating as the new millennium beckoned, there remained many a rugged experimentalist, aural individualist, or techie maverick to invade the body corpus and tweak it a knob or two. In other words, there’s soul in these here (hear?) grooves, embellished with a sense of glee and well-coiffed sound design, the ideal copy for the space between one’s ears. Shame on you if you pass up Private Channel this go-‘round.
Private Channel is available on Touched Music.
