Electric Birds
Panorama
[Deluxe]
Rating: 6.7
How come so few Americans have made interesting electronic music for home
listening purposes? I am aware of Detroit, yes, and then there's the stray
Matmos or Kid606, and the near-monopoly on hip-hop. These things must be
taken into account. But there are 280 million people in the United States.
We are world leaders in technology. We are lousy with natural resources.
Add it all up, and it just doesn't make sense that the kids of Western
Cologne Middle School could hang with our nation's best.
I'm exaggerating a bit here to make a point: The term "rock and roll
fantasy" still has a very tangible meaning on these shores, and laptops
are not yet a part of our rock and roll dream. Guitar shops in the
United States still sell guitars, and let's not forget the fact that we
have yet to produce a generation of electronic music mentors. In sum,
the pool of talent in the United States remains comparatively thin.
Which is just one of the reasons why Mike Martinez' debut as Electric Birds
was such a pleasant surprise. Here was an accomplished electronic record that
slid effortlessly between styles (glitch, ambient, drone, pop). And it came
from the States. The soft and pretty vibe of the album aligned it more with
Japanese musicians like Neina and Sosumu Yokoto than anything coming out of
Europe, which was natural considering that Martinez is based on the West
coast. Now comes his follow-up, Panorama.
It's difficult for me to tell if my disappointment in this record has to
do with my narrow expectations not being met or an actual decrease in
quality. It reminds me of the problem I initially had with Mouse on Mars'
Niun Niggung. At the time of the 1999 import release, I was convinced
that it was the band's worst record. Listening to it recently, I remembered
that it came out at a time when I was deep into Glam and
Instrumentals, and I wanted desperately for them to continue in this
ambient vein. So my reaction had more to do with what I wanted out of the
record specifically than it did with the quality of the music. I've since
approached it on its own terms and found it increasingly rewarding.
Certainly, the overall tone on Panorama is very different than the
self-titled record. While that album moved effortlessly between Oval-style
cut-ups, all-consuming guitar washes and indie vocal tracks, the mood here
is very consistent. All of these tracks were pieced together with a similar
blueprint, one based very clearly on loops. I listen to instrumental electronic
music roughly 60% of the time, and oddly, I find myself increasingly irritated
by extreme repetition.
Each of these tracks consists of anywhere from 4 to 7 different sound patterns,
set in motion one after another. The sounds are painstakingly constructed and
often very beautiful, but there's a certain dynamic missing, a sense of
building and tearing down. On Electric Birds' debut was a fantastic track
called "Finger & Stroke" that gradually slid from a warm drone into chaotic
noise. It's that sense of development that's missing from most of the tracks
on Panorama.
But maybe the sounds here are what the record is about. They're certainly
more elegant and lush than anything on the last album. My favorite track here
is the first (don't you hate it when that happens?), the sweet and lovely
"Avocet (Panorama Mix)." I'm reminded of how the minimalists influenced German
proto-techno in this track, as the repeating xylophone-sounding synth patch
distills the finest moments of the Tangerine Dream songbook into one hypnotic
sequence, with some on-time drum programming bringing the style into the 21st
century underneath.
"A Green Frost" is the richest of Panorama's ambient tracks, completely
fulfilling Mike Martinez' stated goal of creating music that works like a
picture. Everything in the song flows in slow motion, splashes of viscous
liquid creating droplets that hang mid-air forever. Several track explore
percussion loops and samples with less success. "Terra Forms" combines the
sound of slowly shifting machine gears with clicks and deep drones but fails
to conjure a mood. "Repercussions" is based on some interesting drum samples
but never really catches fire.
Martinez seems most comfortable here on "Black Oceans," which owes something
to San Francisco's glitch-house scene. It starts with swirling liquid sounds
and eventually brings in a light house groove reminiscent of the Orb. Many of
these tracks feel stuck somehow between the song-oriented and sound-oriented
worlds. Martinez' trick on the debut was to just to jump around and make each
track its own thing. Panorama sacrifices some of that eclecticism for
unity. It's a good record, but I can't help but feel a little let down after
what came before.
-Mark Richard-San