You Can Dance to This
Welcome to Sideways is the follow-up album to 2014’s Whorl from the British duo producers that make up Simian Mobile Disco. Going forward with their experimentations, Welcome to Sideways draws heavier on first wave techno than its predecessor.
The album opens up with “Happening Distractions” with a simple, clean layering of melody and metronome bass lines. It introduces a full rich sound that remains all throughout Welcome To Sideways. As it subtly builds its air of mystery, it does not reach its climax point until almost the very end where it then releases into “Far Away From a Distance.” The tone changes as the music flexes away from the clean cut to the fuzzy hypnosis found in trance. The sound fills up fully and tension is easily crafted.
“Bubble Has No Answers” manages to sound busy yet desolate at the same time and gets broken up by an unattractive scratching layering that distracts from whatever else is going on. This faltering section continues into “Staring At All This Handle” which initially comes off as a creative build of textures and layers and quickly falls into repetitive loops.
“Space is Filled With Ringing” recovers some of the lost ground. It develops more of a dance beat without pushing to hard on on the bass, a somewhat welcomed change at that point in the album. It is not clean sounding, but the chaotic drum kits feel more intentional than some of the other “messier” songs
At almost nine minutes “Remember in Reverse” comes in as the longest song and with its slow build ups with no real drive behind them it also comes in as the least interesting song.<
“Drone Follows Me Everywhere” uses the album’s last seven minutes to take its time building and filling up the sound completely, building up the tension until the very end and letting it go with a gentle release, closing out Welcome to Sideways with a quiet exit rather than a big bang.
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