After letting these tracks simmer for well over a year, Time To Play is clearly a substantial release that reinvigorates the energy of the past while keeping a firm grip on the current pulse of electronics.
Released in July 2009, Matt Brock (aka Dicepeople) revealed Time To Play, a ten track album (available on CD) that bonded many influences from industrial, psychedelic, noise, ambient, techno and fragments of native rhythms (listen to “Oubliette,” for example). Now over a year later, Time To Play has been made available as a complimentary digital release via the Dicepeople website at dicepeople.org/music; a very generous offer that fans of the above-mentioned genres should take full advantage of. Now time for some audio play-back analysis with this vibrant release full of analogous and oftentimes saturated melodies and heavy beatwork. Have a listen to the audio streams at the bottom of this review to grasp its neurological appeal.
The title track swells to the foreground and slips away into the backdrop with a relaxed, almost tribal feel as it breaks down with splashes of vocal samples and sizzling audio flux. One can’t help but recognize Dicepeople’s influences (Front 242, My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, Tangerine Dream and Underworld to name a few) as they are evident on tracks like “Seek, Locate” where vocodered “Seek, locate, exterminate” lyrics are peppered around darkened undulation (think ADULT. styled vocal delivery). “Borderline” and “The World I See” subliminally hints at early 90’s Depeche Mode aesthetics (sans lyrics) with synth washes evenly spread around mild percussion, whimsical rhythms and the odd sample tossed in for good measure. “The Fear,” perhaps the most dancefloor friendly of the batch, is a clean cut mechanized machine of perfected basslines that is sure to inherit repeat playback. “Wormsign” and “Ghost,” while staying in a direct audiovisual pathway of its counterparts, falls deep into downbeat trenches and slowly unveils contagious moods that softens the sharp tonal activity of Time To Play.
Let’s just say we’ve taken this release for a long-term audio test drive and 30,000 miles later we can easily say it’s still definitely time to play this album from start to end; there’s a clear and concise mid-90’s style industrial-techno slant and the production values are at par with any major label release without the hype. After letting these tracks simmer for well over a year, Time To Play is clearly a substantial release that reinvigorates the energy of the past while keeping a firm grip on the current pulse of electronics. Definitely an album worth seeking out, not only for its invigorated trajectory, but also for a look at how intertwined genre’s can be exposed without losing direction.
Time To Play is out now and is available as a free digital release at dicepeople.org/music. Likewise, you download the entire release right here.
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