Monolake "Hongkong" Chain Reaction CRD-04 1997 (69:22)
Cyan (12:04)
Index (10:21)
Lantau (12:57)
Macau (9:35)
Arte (9:14)
Occam (7:39)
Mass Transit Railway (7:32)
Produced by Gerhard Behles and Robert Henke with a special appearance by Wieland Samolak on "Mass Transit Railway"
Overall impression: excellent. Berlin's Chain Reaction label has quietly been paving the future of electronic music for the past 3-4 years (and before that as Basic Channel). CR's sound is a deep, narcotic blend of repetitive, minimalist detroit techno, house, dub and ambiance. Every cd comes in an identical metal tin, but despite the anonymity of the packaging and similarity in sound of all of the CR releases, each artist has their own take. Monolake favors a cleanly produced, fluid and generally laid back style. Something is always happening within these tracks ... washes of sound (water often being one) wrap in and around the beats, bass and occasional snare as they bounce back and forth within the stereo field. The music is deep and full of life despite it's minimalism ... each song subtly builds and changes to suck you right in. The album is well balanced between techno ("Cyan", "Index", "Occam") and dub ("Lantau", "Macau", "Arte" ... I once read a review for a CR release that perfectly described it as "dub pretending to be techno") oriented tracks, and is impeccably completed with the final beat less, ambient journey of "Mass Transit Railway". All in all "Hongkong" is beautifully entrancing, my favorite of all of the Chain Reaction releases to date as well as my favorite "minimal techno" album (although the self titled Maurizio cd also on CR is a close second). This is highly intelligent techno made by people who know the past in order to create the future ...
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Where did I get this cd? - mail order via amazon.com