Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Chilled Underwater Ambient, 26 Jul 2000
By A Customer
Classy, atmospheric ambience. Perfect music for chilling. The music is all really cleverly constructed and it just draws you in...
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4 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
Pretty dull, 16 Feb 2000
By A Customer
Fairly eccentric electro-banter that thinks it's much better than it is. No more than four of the twelve tracks deserve more than a single listening, and the album flows together like your typical B-sides and Rarities collection. Don't bother with this. Vastly superior however, is 2LS's 1999 mini-album "A Virus with Shoes"... that scores hits for all this album's misses.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Incomprehensibly good..., 21 April 2007
In a lifetime, if one is lucky enough, one gets to hear, to own, to cherish, a handful of truly incredible, life-changing albums. My small handful includes the likes of The Stone Roses, Screamadelica, Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, Funkadelic, Blues For Allah, Neil Young and a few others. These are albums that are as profound and important as I can imagine any piece of art can be. Crucially, they are in effect single compositions that must be digested as a whole. These are not albums that meet quotas, act as vehicles for singles or rely on tired formulas. They are unique and profound moments in musical history. The Two Lone Swordsmen are nothing if not original and are utterly profound. They can at times seem inaccessible and certainly require effort. But then all good things do, and as we all know the best albums certainly don't jump out at you. The reason why I have garbled slightly and am not going to carry on much longer is that this album is pretty much beyond comprehension, let alone description. It took me about a year to really, really, appreciate it, but now I am simply floored at every listen. It is one of those pieces of music where quite literally not one single note or noise should be changed. It has less jagged edges than their other work and is a single fluid journey that gently meanders through an aural paradise. The tracks morph into one; it is a rollercoaster ride through every imaginable electronic musical landscape and texture. It is the one record argument for electronic music: it does things that simply aren't possible with 'traditional' instruments. The pair employ their machines with staggering seamlessness: it is akin to a wonder that is normally only seen in nature. It achieves a remarkable balance of ambience, funk, humour and something that I know not how to describe. It includes incredible detail yet evokes broad emotions; it is the musical equivalent of a great novel - it is a magnum opus. Sabres of Paradise, Sabresonic, Screamadelica, Wilmot, Planet D (ah those beats), Smokebelch, the Ballad of Nicky Maguire - I love(d) them all but believe me this is special. To be honest I get the impression that Weatherall prefers the darker, moodier skanks, but in Stay Down, he and Keith Tenniswood have perhaps stumbled (you'll understand the irony of that word once you have attempted to comprehend the profundity that is this album) across a single perfect piece of music. Tenniswood's Radioactive Man recordings are superb and Swimming not Skimming & Stockwell Steppas are the very top tier of electronica, (S not S being a truly mesmerising foray into deep house), but this is quite different. I have to wonder why there is not more effusive praise on the net for this album but then I think maybe Swordsmen fans prefer to keep this one to themselves...
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