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Bomb The Bass, "Future Chaos"
Tim Simenon presents his first full-length album of new material since 1995's Clear. Future Chaos is not quite a return to form, but an evolution of the familiar BTB sound, an album of leftfield electronic vocal pop curiously unstuck in time, informed by decades of big beat, trip-hop and acid house, but carving out its own idiosyncratic niche.
One of the most admirable aspects of this album is its restraint. Many of these songs date back to the late 1990s, and Simenon apparently recorded versions with full instrumentation and multiple synthesizers. At some point last year, Simenon returned to this material, but was unhappy with the previous arrangements, and decided to remake the entire album with nothing but a MiniMoog and a laptop. This was a smart decision, as this restriction instantly lends the album a strong sense of cohesiveness, a quality not often found in multi-vocalist electronic albums. The fat analog basslines, spidery synth figures, and chunky rhythms created with the Moog make the album a real treat for fans of analog soundcraft. The whole album chugs along with a sound that feels refreshingly uncalculated; a dark, playful, and mostly quiet suite of bedroom pop songs. If this album has any contemporary point of reference, I would say that it sounds much more like Matthew Dear's Asa Breed than newer works by BTB compatriots such as Meat Beat Manifesto or Massive Attack. There aren't any concessions to dubstep here.
The name of the album is perhaps its only major weakness, a name so generic it sounds like it was produced by drawing at random from a big hat of techno clichés. There's nothing particularly chaotic or futuristic about this album, and if it does touch on contemporary anxieties about the future—pollution, technophobia, isolation—it does so in a way that sounds personal, withdrawn. The guest vocals contribute to this atmosphere, a small selection of exclusively male vocalists all of whom take similar approaches to the material. With the exception of Jon Spencer's fiery contribution, the vocals aim for quiet intensity, soulful whispers and moody introspection. It's an album that lurks in the shadows, far away from warehouse raves and chillout lounges, in alleyways and small after-hours gatherings. As such, it may be something of a disappointment to those looking for a club banger with the bombast of "Beat Dis" or "Bug Powder Dust" (or even "Buffalo Stance"), but Simenon is aiming for something different this time around.
Listeners who have followed Simenon's production work over the past two decades will recognize shades of Depeche Mode in "Smog," in which Paul Conboy's multitracked vocal harmonies are set against a dense background of percolating synthesizer. There are some truly thick and delicious synth sounds on this record, courtesy of Moog's signature sound, of course, but also BTB's mastery of the instrument. "Butterfingers" is my favorite track on the album, a weird little electropop song that is the most instantly catchy song on the album. While the infectious rhythm and bassline are a big part of the charm, as are strange lines like "I play Tetris in my eyelids," it's also refreshing to hear David Best's vocals outside of their usual Neu!-style lockgrooves of Fujiya and Miyagi. The track is psychedelic and shimmering, but still somehow claustrophobic and disturbing. (As a side note, if you haven't seen the video for this track, by all means check it out.) "Burn the Bunker" is not nearly as bombastic as its title seems to indicate; instead, it's a quietly urgent electro track with hints of jungle drum & bass, vocals contributed by trip-hop artist Toob. The refrain of "Cheap technology and gasoline/My future don't smell like magazines," neatly encapsulates the album's unorthodox deconstruction of mass culture and technology in these pre-apocalyptic times.
"So Special" is yet another standout, an excellent song given an impossibly dense arrangement that seems all the more impressive when you remember that it's all made from one MiniMoog. In "No Bones," Conboy's vocals are cut up to mirror a sparkling synth arpeggiation, just another layer of audio detail in a melancholy, urbane pop song that benefits tremendously from its dense, atmospheric production. The tracks featuring Conboy do the majority of the emotional heavy lifting for Future Chaos, but the other contributors all bring something unique to their tracks. Mark Lanegan of Screaming Trees contributes vocals to "Black River," which sounds like an attempt to turn an alt-country song into a dark electro slow-burner. It's not an altogether convincing juxtaposition, and Lanegan sounds a bit set adrift in the dense electronics, but it's never boring for its four minute running time. The album ends with "Fuzzbox" with vocals by Jon Spencer, the only real tent-burner on the album. Spencer's bluesy punk snarls are set against Simenon's sheets of fuzzy drone, with rubbery acid basslines peeking out everywhere. It's breathlessly exciting stuff.
The album is a bit slim at only nine songs (although the double-disc special edition does contain a bonus track and seven remixes of album tracks by various producers such as Future Funk Squad and Gui Borrato), and a relatively short running time, but it packs in the quality and contains zero filler. It's not quite the album that BTB fans might have expected, and indeed it doesn't slot in easily with any of the electronic styles currently in vogue. To my mind, this is a bonus, as the music cannot be so easily dismissed as the product of this-or-that movement, as happens with so many electronic albums. Whatever the title might suggest, Future Chaos is a work of surprising restraint and control, and if it sometimes looks towards the future, the strength of the songwriting assures that the album has the potential to be timeless.
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