Echo Park - The Revolution of Everyday Life (Lo Recordings)

Echo Park are a dark industrial drum & bass outfit about which I know little. But by listening to the grooves and some in depth sleeve note examinations reveal that this LP is the next logical step in one of 1998's emerging threads of dance music. It's the thread that began with the likes of Fridge (whose Ceefax debut is now slated for a re-release) and continued recently with album releases from UI and Family of God. Echo Park comprises Spykid (heavy on the "loops and scratches") and James Tye (providing more traditional guitars and basses input). They're joined by a veritable army of guitar semi-Gods (including Thurston Moore) all of whom are sampled and treated so as to blend seamlessly into the mix. It's a hypotnotic effect which, on tracks like 'Aum (Aum)' is like a nineties version of Robert Fripp's early Frippertronics and guitar noodlings. But other tracks like 'The Sound of Money' I just don't get - fragments of ideas are used and looped into something that lacks either winning melody or rhythmic depth. But this is only a temporary glitch - 'Razorkiss' fixes the latter problem while 'Air Victim' fixes the former. And 'Innocent X' totally rips things up, as a dance act that employ a 'fuzz bass' player should rightly do. Treat with caution. 6/10


This review also published in: DJ magazine