Frequently Bought Together
Product details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Listen to Samples and Buy MP3s
|
Product Description
Review
This is a collection that echoes a period of the not-so-distant past when slow beats and ethereal vocals were a pairing almost guaranteed to garner a four-star rating in the monthlies. The London-based three-piece – Matt Parker and Chris Amblin on glitches and glides, electro-percussion and pitch control, and Ayu Okakita on vocals; their name is seemingly sourced from Jurassic Park antagonist Dennis Nedry – channel the spirits of Lamb, Portishead and Alpha into a package bearing a modern twist courtesy of some blunted, Caspa-style low-end. These dubstep-y interventions splutter rather than skitter, their reach deep and their touch bruising.
Also present are elements taken from the underground, over, by 65daysofstatic – the general IDM-indebted twitchiness and occasional instances of raucous guitar (Scattered, for example). But like 65days, Nedry are not simply a post-rock band that’s invested in a laptop; their arrangements sound as if they’ve gestated within machines, the trio teasing them into shape by using traditional instrumentation to carve detail, rather than comprise key cornerstones for the eventual whole. If you’ve heard worriedaboutsatan, you’ll feel immediately at home.
If the above reads like a precursor to a conclusion of indifference, then apologies: you’ve been misled. While Condors isn’t backwards in presenting to the fore its makers’ favourite artists, it’s an album that features much to recommend it. The songs are well-layered, the constituent tracks – picture a busy, Tetris-like Logic Pro screen – balanced and blended so that nothing seems shoehorned into the equation. Okakita’s vocals can be mesmerising, in the vein of Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino, and on Squid Cat Battle and Where the Dead Birds Go there’s a tangible menace at play – genre-typical melancholy substituted for preferable malevolence.
Album opener A42 is really impressive – its cascading beats eventually settle to a relative stillness, the break in the piece acting as the storm-eye calm before a resumption of thunderous bass. Set your stereo’s equaliser the right way and it’ll take seconds for the neighbours to come complaining. Apples & Pears sets out at a gentler pace, but once it cuts loose the rumbles are tumultuous enough to test the most expensive of amplifiers. This contrast proves Condor’s core characteristic: the delicate is always threatened by the destructive.
Reinventing a genre they’re not, but Nedry are certainly evolving trip hop in an enticing fashion. --Mike Diver
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
Customer Reviews
Nevertheless, it is worth stating that most listeners' exposure to the movement has been limited to trendy remixes by the likes of Skream, perhaps to cursory appreciation of Burial's Mercury-nominated Untrue and maybe to the odd nod and shuffle at some genre-specific nightspot. However, this is on the change.
The xx included the lightest flourishes of dub into their minimal mash-up of guitars, R&B and electronic pop. These New Puritans have taken a more aggressive stance on their widely-hailed Hidden. Combining Kid A and Amnesiac-style beats, they layer near-tribal and/or junglistic rhythms onto synthesised, heavy bass pulses. And now Nedry have delved back further into time to bring together Portishead-type influences with this most distinct electronic shift of recent years.
That it all works so seamlessly is first testament to Beth Gibbons and company and shows how far ahead of the curve they were, and secondly to Nedry themselves. They may not win fans amongst the diehard stepping community, but they'll gain plenty from elsewhere.
Inevitably there will be comparison to The xx. Both are from London, both are doing something excitingly different and both can be bundled roughly within the same brackets. Both hybrids have crossover appeal to the alternative scene, and probably to the popular one. However, despite a similar sense of slyly creeping menace in both records, Nedry occupy an entirely different space.
They wisely depend on their vocalist Ayu Okakita to supply most of Condors' atmospherics. Her voice floats, haunts, soars, drifts and any other such cliché in this vein. Truly, it bridges the distance between Björk's other-worldliness and Beth Gibbons' disinterest. Backing up these stunning lungs we meet alternating, minimal guitar rhythms and varied levels of dub, and this is where Condors gets interesting.
Okakita's vocal is simply great, the guitar is merely support, the dub is fresh - but crucially only to crowds without much prior exposure. Together, parts of Condors are a new vein of post-rock, others in genre-bending ambience. Others still flirt strongly enough with dub to fall wholly into that classification.
Their current signature "Apples & Pears" doubles as their showcase flagship. It's wonky, speaker-bothering stuff that flits from left to right in stereo, sonically inhabiting space via distortion. Dub aside, Condors, and indeed "Apples & Pears", is a restrained affair, built on anonymous rhythm guitar, ambience and purposeful bass - bring it in however and often all hell breaks loose.
The beats of "Squid Cat Battle" are altogether dirtier and more aggressive, and those low-end pulses bubble and simmer throughout. Okakita even gets a little Elizabeth Frazer on us, emoting in unintelligible exasperation. Often breaking with key changes, it is ripe for an absolutely banging remix. Speaking of which, Condors is very much a statement of ability rather than intent and it will certainly catch many an ear. Do not be surprised to see Nedry farmed out for remix duty for the remainder of 2010.
The title track is full of glottal punctuations and tribal rhythms, the vocal here at its most reminiscent to Gibbons. The most squarely guitar-driven material on Condors come courtesy of "Scattered" and even then its tripping beats and squelchy overlay recall early Prodigy at their finest. The choppy synth patterns and reverb-ed guitar on offer later devolve into bleeps and low-octave twiddling as the track wobbles to a close.
This confidence to vary their influences and ultimately output helps Condors out of obvious pigeonholes - it jumps and skitters, plucking what it fancies from seemingly any genre. Had dubstep never arisen, Nedry may well have just been a credible and largely ambient Portishead tribute. With it, they are in a world of their own.
really nothing much bad to say about this album. Maybe that it is
amazingly short, Only 8 tracks of which two are about two minutes
in length. Other one is that the end of the album (Condors & Swan
Ocean) lacks dynamic sound and clear song construct.
But it's a double edged sword: Being short, it is also very easy
and enjoyable to listen through, and makes the album very complete.
Short interlude, Four Layers of Pink, is very good at letting the
listener take a breath after two great opening tunes.
The vocalist's voice is very beautiful, soaring and hovering lightly
in the air like a condor. Production is excellent. Bass is soft and
ample. Squid Cat Battle uses guitars excellently. the end of the album
is dreaming and athmospheric. Condors (song) makes you think of vast
canyons.
All in all, a very balanced and good album - excellent value for your
money.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
