(11.17.06) I am not a fan of Mad EP’s previous effort Eating Movies, and unfortunately the trend doesn’t change with Not Afraid Of Spiders. Matthew Peters is a skilled producer, with a vast and solid background in electronic and classical music, but his compositions always seem out of focus. There are interesting tracks on Not Afraid Of Spiders, but they’re scattered around in a confusing blend of distant and dissonant styles.
“Acid Jig” is a nice work of sample mania, but both End and Donna Summer are better in this field. Speaking of End, Mad/EQ’s remix of “Fit To Die” indeed fits on The Sick Generation remix album, but here enhances the lack of coherence: like “Watch Yo Step” and “Deconstruct This” is a pounding hip-hop piece, juxtaposed to orchestral improvisation or solo instruments over soft electronica. The rodeo country remix of Mochipet’s “Velvet Puddling Mold” seems especially out of place if compared to the dark western of “Retner Mantis Bass” that sounds like a more rhythmical version of Dead Hollywood Stars (and that’s good). Again, this doesn’t mean the tunes are weak, most of them are really well produced, but at around the halfway-mark of the disc you’ll more than likely check to see if you pressed the wrong button, and instead, listening to your iPod Shuffle.
You could call it eclectic, but I just find it very difficult to define Mad EP’s style and follow his music with the right attention. Along this record Mad EP packed enough ideas to start at least three albums, but in the end failed to properly complete Not Afraid Of Spiders, that more likely resembles a collection of randomly chosen tracks. I hope that at least in the recently released The Madlands Trilogy (Ad Noiseam, CD) he managed to stick with a homogeneus taste on each disc.
Not Afraid Of Spiders is out now on Hymen.
