No, the blog isn't dead. I've just been very busy (and often unmotivated) lately. Hopefully things are turning around.
November 19, 2012 • Cold Tear Records
I grabbed a couple albums from Cold Tear's Bandcamp page in an attempt to expand my electronic music palette—something I've been attempting to do for some time now. Though my target was more ambient minimalistic soundscapes à la Burial or something, I still enjoyed what I got.
Sending Echoes is a bit more "normal" than Burial, anyway, as normal as minimal techno gets: sweeping background synths, warm fuzzy background noises, lighter beats, and echoing pads holding it all in place. It's a nice aesthetic, at least on parts; while listening on headphones might not be the ideal environment there are certainly some neat samples and sounds going on, especially on tracks like "Continuum" with the samples and saxophone (I'm pretty sure it's not actually saxophone, but I don't know what it actually is), or the driving groove of "Lab 31 Am Wesser". It's great background music, for sure, and there are moments where the music really does grab my attention with an interesting twist or sound.
The album does have an issue with quality control and pacing, though; since the tracks were obviously thrown together without regard for flow (I mean, come on, they're in alphabetical order!) it's a bit of a weird listen if taken all at once. The first couple of tracks are some of the most uninteresting, giving the impression that the whole thing isn't worth hearing (which almost put me off completely); only in the second quarter of the album or so do things really start to pick up. With an hour's run time and thirteen tracks to choose from, at least a couple could easily have been cut.
Regardless, it's not a bad album by any means. It's probably not something I'd recommend to the uninitiated, as it has its problems and can be difficult to get into, but for what it is, it's pretty nice. Nothing spectacular, and I probably won't be spinning it much after today, but it was worth the couple of listens.
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