(08.06.08) A new electronics label has emerged from the UK scene, Cultivated Electronics. The newborn label is offering up a 12″ of selected artists for its first outing, showcasing some of the sounds the label wants to introduce to ears across the globe. This new Various Artists release is simply entitled Cultivated Electronics 001 and contains four tracks by some new names, and an old favorite.
The 12″ opens with “Future Funked,” an electro inspired piece by Matthew Whitehead and Phil Bolland a.k.a. Signal Type. The track is a work of squelching analogues enveloped in a dark synthesizer aura with crisp beats as soaring waves. It is a piece heavily influenced by the grimy and underhanded sound of Detroit electro, a shadowy and shifty piece of sonorous paranoia. Abstrakt Knights and “Six Number Test” finish off the A-Side of the EP. Fragmented computer beats are the corner stone of the track, drums sieved through machines and ensnared in metallic hip hop corruption; a piece reminiscent of the Schematic sound.
The B-Side opens with Innune, a.k.a. Rob Smith who is one part of Cultek. The track is named after the short lived British Modernist movement, “Vorticism.” Sadly, the track does not contain the inspiration and individualism of Wyndham Lewis and the Voricist movement. The beats and sound are that bit more tired than the A-Side predecessors, with less development and substance to the piece. The final track of the EP is by Point 7 a.k.a. Chris Cunningham, the owner of the Toytronic label. Chris has been quiet for some time, after great collaborative releases with Gimmik in the form of Abfahrt Hinwil. The track is called “X Insert” and harks back to the Toytronic days of warm analogue sounds, but this time injected with some digital glitch to add a sharper edge to the rounded electronics of past pieces.
Cultivated Electronics have produced an EP of admirable electronica, but like so many IDMesque imprints it hasn’t given the listener anything refreshing. This is a record that features some interesting moments, and its attempt to splice styles leads to an uneven listening experience.
Cultivated Electronics EP 001 is out now on Cultivated Electronics.
