| After reading about her affiliation with Ninja Tune and its sister label Ntone, I was surprised to discover how organic Riz Maslen's latest release under the Neotropic moniker is. That's not to say White Rabbits is devoid of digital manipulation, but the electronica label seems too limiting for such a broad work of music. Yeah, so it's inevitable that the album will be grouped in with other indie electronic acts (refer to my similar artists listing), but don't let the name dropping fool you, White Rabbits is original enough to hold its own. If, for the sake of argument, I was going to break out some comparisons, I would most definitely start at a point far removed from the world of digitally tweaked break beats: The first song, "New Cross" sounds more like some low-key Yo La Tengo cover, and the reoccurring piano and guitar phrases are pretty enough to fit on any given Rachels album. As a whole, Maslen succeeds at juxtaposing jazzy guitar lines with crisp digital high hat snaps, plotting low, dub-like bass figures and cut up vocals against methodical violin and harmonica passages, and so on. White Rabbits is a step in the right direction not only for its creator, but for the electronic genre as whole. - Tiny Mix Tapes |
2XLP/Out Of Print