What a relief. Just when I was starting to think that every Astralwerks release was the mac daddy pimp phat dope shit, I get Aquarhythms to strip me of my misconceptions.

Aquarhythms is a compilation of remix tracks originally done by Jay Ahern under a number of different pseudonyms such as Ether, Hydroelectric, the Acquarian and the Hydronaut. The large majority of the tracks represented are minimalist and ambient, content to set moods with repetitive clicks and bloops over stretched synth background tones. Although the motifs set up are often very appealing at the beginning of each track, there's not much else to capture attention, as each track tends to spin into a repetitive loop devoid of any progression. Greetings appears to be attempting to impress the listener with subtlety, but without depth, it winds up chasing its tail from track to track. Kill the dog and eat the biscuits.

-James P. Wisdom