Photek
Solaris
[Astralwerks]
Rating: 2.0
I swear to God I had to check the spelling. How many Photeks could there possibly be in the
world? Well, none in the phonebook; but two that I know of: the visionary junglist who
masterminded the steely noir Modus Operandi and Risk vs. Reward, and the
self-satisfied hack behind the lackluster Solaris. In his novel of the same name,
Stanislaw Lem's Solaris was a massive oceanic planet that functioned as a brain in dead
space. Andrei Tarkovsky's lengthy but nonetheless mesmerizing 1972 film adaptation gave the
science fiction classic a visual resonance to rival one's own imagination. When I got my
hands on Photek's Solaris and gazed into the deep, dead, blue sea on the album cover,
I thought Rupert Parkes had finally lighted on a theme worthy of his considerable talents.
Photek's Solaris, however, is not the madness of the liquid space mind; it's the
surgically enhanced decadence of the French Riviera.
Solaris is an anthem for Eurotrash everywhere. Its sins are ultimately sloth and
indifference. Eschewing the brilliantly cold futurism of earlier efforts, Photek has crafted
a dull excursion into the sunnier latitudes of electronic music: a tropical cocktail of
salt-rimmed drum n' bass, faux-sexual bedroom ambient and lifeless house. Robert Owens'
love-you-down soul crooning is the baby parasol in the ice-blended mix. This shit may wash
at the Club Med, but not here.
The album starts off with promise. I was willing to embrace the hot tribal primitivism of the
first track, "Terminus": the heavy congas and the twittering winds reverberated easily into
the synths and noise. The Psykick Warriors Ov Gaia had virtually perfected this sound on the
underrated Ov Biospheres and Sacred Grooves. But where the Warriors embraced the lush
aesthetics of non-Western rhythms, Photek comes off as dilettantish, flirting with the
organic rather than wholeheartedly immersing himself in a new approach to sound. "Terminus"
is one of Solaris' strongest tracks, but his dabbling grows cartoonish after repeated
listenings.
The third track, "Glamourama" (the title aptly cribbed from a Brett Easton Ellis novel), is the
first huge misstep: the dullest of house breaks and vapid basslines serve as little more than a
couch for the running sample of Italian dialogue, which Parkes lifted from Vedette, a
film by his new bride, the Dutch director Miriam Kruishoop. Parkes' claims that he was going
for the sound of bored, rich decadence and he may have succeeded in spite of himself: "Glamourama"
is the dullest moment on Solaris, so dominated by what must be brilliant Italian dialogue
that Photek could forego any imaginative contribution whatsoever.
What happens next is a travesty. Chicago-native and former Fingers, Inc. vocalist, Robert Owens
takes the helm for two of the flimsiest, most predictable house numbers ever created, "Mine to
Give" and "Can't Come Down." Synths splash and breaks bounce cheerfully under Owens' abominable
lyrics, "If that don't make you happy/ I don't know/ I don't know," or "What I can do/ What can
I do to make your dreams come true/ Every day of your life/ I'll try to make it right/ Girl,
believe me, girl/ I'm right here by your side." This is the music of lobotomy: all the eerie
anxiety and evasion of earlier Photek efforts were bartered away for day-glo and a caricature of
human sexuality.
"Infinity" is faded and dreamy enough to push the bile back down to mid-throat. The clipped drums
hit like science, but there isn't much by way of variation. The whooshing whispers and curious
synthesizers craft an atmosphere of dense fog and confusion. The urgent thud of the bass makes one
feel late for something important; the forgettable title track, unworthy of its allusions, offers
up more disco filler. The lumbering, echoey "Halogen" is easily the album's strongest number (which
is saying very little), reminiscent of Bill Laswell's countless excursions into world-dub fusion.
The deep, torpid beats continue in "Lost Blue Heaven," under Simone Simone's melodramatic vocals.
The New Age pseudo-profundity of "Under the Palms" concludes the album in a tidal wash of lazy
synthesizer.
Unfortunately, Solaris seems uninspired from start to finish; what works can easily be found
elsewhere. The album plays like a toss-off, aspiring to neither coherence nor originality. The fact
that this will be filed in any proximity to Modus Operandi seems like sacrilege. In any case,
Rupert Parkes and his new wife should get their telephone number listed. I'll take it upon myself
to call him and tell him that whoever's recording under his Photek moniker has been pissing in the
swimming pool.
-Brent S. Sirota