Dntel :: Early Works for Me If It Works For You I & II, Something Always Goes Wrong (Phthalo)

(October 2009) What an embarrassment of riches this package is. Bringing back into print two essential mid-90’s IDM near-classics, this package adds a third disc of period outtakes that, for me, really made me wish it was 1996 again. What a fertile time the mid-90s were for music – Autechre’s Tri Repetae++ was usually spinning, and when it wasn’t, Underworld’s Second Toughest In The Infants, Orbital’s In Sides, Orb’s Orbus Terrarum, DJ Shadow’s Entroducing, Tricky’s Maxinquaye, U-Ziq’s In Pine Effect, Massive Attack’s Protection or Aphex Twin’s I Care Because You Do was. And Jimmy Tamborello was beginning to make tracks under the name Dntel, influenced by what he was hearing at the time. It was truly a once-in-a-lifetime period for music, whether you were a raver, a bedroom-headphone listener, or a creator. Magic was possible within the circuits, SCSI drives and midi cables. Years before he would create “lap-pop” with The Postal Service, Tamborello was working with a strain of music that will never sound old.

Something is outstanding, a textbook example of what it possible in music when you have limited resourced. Using only a Kurzweil 2000’s and some midi software, the 10 tracks show a real talent for arrangement and a necessary inventiveness to push the equipment. Incredibly lush in places, Something’s original six tracks (the names of which tell a sad tale of a questing hero and his demise) are enhanced with a couple of remixes and a couple of period outtakes. And of course they’re all great – I’m such a cheerleader for this kind of music that its frankly hard to be 100% objective, but clever beats with some melodic keys over it and a few nice change-ups, and I’m sold. Taking a look these tracks from another angle, that being Tamborello’s initial forays into music-making, the seeds of his later greatness are readily audible. And while he hadn’t embraced the pop-song structure he would later on Life Is Full of Possibilities, pushing his tracks past the six-minute mark, I find that his methods for developing his tracks mostly justify their length (see “In Which Our Hero Frees the Damsel In Distress” for illustration).

Early Works I is an altogether different beast, and for a simple reason – drum ‘n bass – which wasn’t the force of nature it became in the late 90’s, had started to bubble its way out of the London clubs and over to our shores. And when it did, all bets were off. No one who made IDM before dnb made it the same way after (yes, even Autechre). Where beats were simple but effective, they became cluttered, unnecessarily so. Personally, I think we all kind of lost something there, but I’m no luddite, despite preferring Orbital’s 2 to The Altogether. Blame me? Exactly. I digress – Tamborello, like the rest of the world, was taken by the new sound and hyperactivity of dnb so I can’t blame him for incorporating it into his music – for those that don’t remember, there was no way to avoid dnb at the time. Kind of like dubstep now. Point being that while Tamborello’s keen melodic sense is coming into his own on these tracks, he’s incorporating contemporary influences and allowing his muse to develop. “Pliesex Sielking” (can there be a more mid-90’s song title than that? Email me with your favorites) is for me the highlight, its subtle vocal samples and schizophrenic moods evincing a playfulness that Tamborello brought to full expression with the Postal Service.

Early Works II is all previously unreleased material, all recorded between 1998 – 2001, while he was crafting Life is Full of Possibilities. As such, for fans of that album, this is essential listening. Continuing his exploration into post-dnb melodics, and incorporating vocals into his music, these tracks are for the most part still vibrant, still alive, and still tantalizing, giving fans audible embryonic glimpses of what was about to explode into pop culture with the Postal Service. There are a couple of clunkers, to be sure (“Incomplete 1”), but the 18 tracks here are far more hit than miss. Highly recommended for fans of Postal Service, and mid-90’s IDM.

Early Works for Me If It Works For You I & II, Something Always Goes Wrong is out now on Phthalo. [Listen / Purchase]

• Phthalo
• Dntel