Artist: Alder and Elius
Title: Parental Advisory
Format: 12" Single
Label: Skam
Catalogue Number: SKA0013
Year of Release: 1999
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Tracklisting:
A1 Unriddled Allude
A2 Digital Toddler
A3 In Effect
B1 Vesica Pisces
B2 Bionic Vagina
B3 Inhale
Nice insert too, look:
Firstly, gotta love that Skam Records thing of putting braille on the sleeves, I've worked out that on this release it's the artist name, on another I have it's the catalogue number. No idea what the reason is behind it, but it immediately made me think of the sensory experience of music, as well as the more practical aspects of shopping when visually impaired.
And so to the record. An odd pair, these guys. There are similarities in these tracks to the recordings of Skam label-mates - Bola, Gescom and Boards of Canada spring to mind for beats and synths, and Wevie Stonder for some of the outright stupidity. But Alder and Elius and neither as clean and crisp in their production as Bola etc., nor as plain nuts as Wevie (as his friends call him). In fact, it seems that some of their sounds are deliberately rough, a dirt-cheap drum track clanks along to a four-note 80s synth riff, and then all of a sudden some crazy-ass DSP patch type effect rips the thing to shreds, disappears, and you're back to clunking along with your carboot instrument loops and noises.
In Effect is my favourite, but only just, as things are quite same-y. It doesn't out stay its welcome at least, like Bionic Vagina, which must have seemed like a good idea at the time, but the track would probably be improved by removing the cheap porn samples and improvising some nose flute over the top.
One for the Skam completists.
