| UK-based downtempo/ambient electronic producer Neotropic (aka Riz Maslen) initially made waves through her association with ambient electronic dons the Future Sound of London, contributing vocal elements to their 1994 Lifeforms album and also appearing on Top of the Pops with the duo as a live singer. From these beginnings, Maslen's debut 1995 as Neotropic on Ninja Tune's now-defunct Ntone sublabel, 15 Levels of Magnification introduced her eclectic and often slightly unsettling blend of ambient electronics, dub and breakbeat elements - the overarching theme being Government surveillance cameras and dark paranoia. Maslen's subsequent comparatively uptempo 1996 Stickleback EP as Small Fish With Spine (released through Oxygen Music Works) showcased a slightly more dance-friendly side of her productions, while 1998's comeback album as Neotropic Mr. Brubaker's Strawberry Alarm Clock showed her music moving into even darker sample-based downtempo territory. Maslen's third Neotropic album, released through Ntone in 2001, La Prochaine Fois showed her music moving distinctly away from sample-based solo constructions towards acoustic-based compositions and live performances, and featured collaborations with ex-Verve guitarist Nick McCabe, including the well-received single "Sunflower Girl." Now, three years later Maslen has re-emerged on a new label, Mush Records (also home to Clue to Kalo) with her fourth album as Neotropic, the slightly Lewis Carroll-esque titled White Rabbits. In many ways, stylistically White Rabbits represents a direct continuation on from the more acoustically-grounded textures of her last album, and features the input of a range of instrumentalists including Australia's own Ben Frost and Ollo (who toured with Neotropic through the USA in 2002). Opening intro "Girls at the Seaside" offers a brief wash of atmospheric seaside sound, the crashing of waves thundering over the faint echo of someone's footsteps on the sand, segueing into the melancholic slide guitar and looped acoustic drums of "New Cross," stray digital clicks and bleeps, as well as washes of environmentally-sourced sound spinning back and forth over warm organ tones and glockenspiel. It's a blend of acoustic and electronic elements that fuses together seamlessly, and calls comparisons to the 'post-rock' likes of Tortoise and Stereolab far more to mind than any of Maslen's former labelmates at Ninja Tune. As it draws to a close, the spectrally disembodied voice of an automated train announcer counting off the names of London stations slowly dub-echoes off, trailing into the slow, cut and-paste shuffling drums of "Inch Inch," a gentle piano figure picking its way over burbling organ and digitally-manipulated beats, while howls of guitar feedback and ghostly static curve around and through the mix. "Magpies" slowly emerges from the sound of distant thunder and falling rain and treads its way over nine and a half minutes of sinister drama, Maslen's spookily cut-up vocal tones filtering through crunching downtempo hip-hop beats, the electronics coming a bit more to the forefront with ominous throbbing synthetic bass, epic strings and stretched-out electric guitar tones courtesy of Ben Frost. After building constantly for its first six minutes, all of the elements drop out of the mix, leaving only Frost's lone strummed acoustic and Maslen's untreated vocal, before the sound of crashing waves once more leads things out alongside graceful violin. "Odity Round-a-Heights" ventures deeper into sinister ambient electronics, with sinister sampled distant chatter and geiger-counteresque clicks and pops trailing their way through a beatless background of ominous drones, before "Feelin' Remote" turns up the level of filmic intensity even more, Paris, Texas-esque slide guitar and harmonica trading licks over a brooding backing of crunching beats and swelling synths that curiously calls to mind a fusion between the quieter parts of NIN's The Fragile and desert alt-rockers Calexico. "Joe Luke" meanwhile treads its way over an epic twelve minute-long canvas, dubbed-out scratches of electric guitar threading their way alongside sombre piano and slow brushed drums, Maslen's fuzzed-out torchsong vocals making their way back to the forefront as they venture in slow-motion through languid guitar bends and ethereal synth washes. Finally, "If We Were Trees" brings this album to a suitably widescreen close with Ollo's Lars Chresta and Alex Crowfoot contributing drone scape and Moog respectively to an oceanic sixteen-minute long sprawl of slow looped drums, acid squelches and serpentine flutes, Maslen's edged "You're doin' my head in" vocal sliding over buzzing electronics and downtuned blues-inflected guitar. White Rabbits is a stunning new album from Neotropic that shows Maslen continuing the move away from predominantly sample-based productions towards acoustic based arrangements that La Prochaine Fois introduced, while also managing to hone her potent blend of alt-country, post-rock and downtempo electronics to an even greater degree. White Rabbits is easily one of the most 'sonically dense' albums that I've heard this year in that each listen constantly yields previously undiscovered sonic details - a hint of whispered chatter here, a brief curl of strings there. Like Stereolab and Tortoise, this is music that places an emphasis on textures (both rhythmic and melodic), and like these aforementioned comparison points, while Maslen takes on some ambitious terrain here, there's not a single weak moment here. Brilliant, evocative stuff -highly recommended. - In the Mix |
2XLP/Out Of Print