It's like Matthew Herbert has finally found a way to put every musical style he has experience in his recent albums together into one big melting pot. There are funky/house beats, jazzy arrangements, big cinematic strings, experimental sounds, poppy vocals and innovative songwriting. The album starts nicely with "Something Isn't Right" with a straight dance beat with mixture of male and female vocals. His long time collaborator Dani Siciliano does the female vocals here again. Next three songs are high quality stuff also and "We're in Love" is a beautiful song with old orchestral jazz feeling and Hollywood-esque strings.

Unfortunately the rest of the album lacks the quality of the first half of the record. There are many great moments in the rest of the songs but it seems that Herbert is little stucked in his own cleverness. The album is a little too long and the compositions start to sound too similar to each other. There are so much hooks and different parts in the songs that it's hard to hang on 'till end of the album.

One problem is also that often "Scale" sounds maybe a bit too much like Roisin Murphy's solo album "Ruby Blue" which was produced by Herbert.

What else can you expect from Thom Yorkes solo album than minimalistic electronic beats, dark athmosphere, pop melodies and some experimentality. I'm glad he has give up his worst manners in singing and leaves his vibrato out. Insted his singing sounds here better than in a long time.

The first two songs are the strongest here, the rest of the record is quite the same. You can here influences from Warp records artists, Björk, and other similar stuff. Any of these songs would have fit in Kid A or Amnesiac along with the other electronic stuff there.

It's a pretty OK record but it's not great. Some songs just leaves a bit cold feeling and don't have enough interesting melodies and the arrangements are so alike in all of the songs that it eats the impact.

Maybe a couple of more "happier tunes" or something really different would have been very freshing here.

After their amazing debut album "Felt Mountain", "Black Cherry" felt like a dissapointment but with a few more listenings it started to open after all and you realised that Goldfrapp was moving different direction from their first album. So now it's no surprise that "Supernature" is even more poppy and electro/glam oriented than "Black Cherry". The first single "Ooh La La" kinda says it all. Electroglam synth boogie which sounds like dated Marc Bolan. "Lovely to see u"'s distorted guitars and cold massive sound feels maybe a little too obvious but "Ride A White Horse" wins with its electro/spacepop feeling. Goldrapps songwriting here is much more poppier than in "Black Cherry" and because of that they maybe lose a little bit of their own identity which they strongly had in their first two albums. For example "Fly Me Away" and "Number 1" are nice but maybe just a little too safe solutions for a group like Goldfrapp. Golfrapp is more at home with songs like "Slide In" which shows clearly their Gary Numan/Peter Gabriel influences.
But i have to say that when i listen to the tracks like "Let It Take You" or "Time Out From The World" i can't help it that i start to miss their "Felt Mountain" days. "Let It Take You" is a amazingly beautiful song with a nice piano sample and haunting vocals and "Time Out From The World" sounds like a lost James Bond theme from the 60's. It's obvious that Goldfrapp wants to move more commercial direction with their music and in "Supernature" they succeed to do that. They still have captured their own sound and their records have enough various songs to make it interesting and very much joyable. I hope that now when with "Supernature" they have reach the main stream audience, on their next record they will do what they want. In many songs of "Supernature" Goldfrapp proves that they are capable to make highly original and innovative music but it also feels that from time to time they want take the easier way.

Kelley Polar quartet played the strings in Metro Areas classic debut album. Now Kelley Polar has released his first solo album and it's not a suprise that the producer behind this record is Metro Areas second half Morgan Geist. You can hear Metroa Areas influnence in this record on some songs pretty heavily but overall it's more pop oriented. There are couple nice instrumentals that will be great on a dancefloor but most of the songs are slower and darker. Kelley Polars smooth and warm works fine here but it's not very original. "Cosmological Constancy" is a great opener with a great bassline, stringsection and flangered vocals. And "Here in the night"'s straight beat with analog synths and hypnotic groove also works well. There are some songs in the album that just doesn't seem to go anywhere and Polar's monotonic voice in couple of songs sounds almost too moody. Songs are basically ok but there seems to be missing something here that would make this a great record. Many of the songs don't have the dance credibility so there should be something else to wake your interest. Now there are too many songs that feels like there is not very much to say. They are nice but that final "hook" seems to be missing.

Raumpatrouille was a Scifi TV series in the sixties and this compilation gathers the highlites of the music that Peter Thomas composed. Peter Thomas sound is jazzy, spacey and orchestral. This is really groundbreaking work. Lots of reverb and big orchestra with spacey sounds and some weird noises, this is a musical science fiction journey to your mind. This record is a favourite of Jarvis Cocker and Röyksopp(you hear it from their record)and i don't wonder why. Peter Thomas universe is campy, psychedelic and full of suprises and interesting sounds. Compositions here are jazzy, lounge, groove, or highly experimental. And all this has been taking through Thomases freaky mind. This guy was ahead of his time, definitely.

If you are interested of 60's soundtracks or if you are just looking something new and innovative music then take my advice: Buy this record and get spaced out!

Golfrapp's debut "Felt Mountain" is an instant classic and their later releases are far from the quality of this record. Everything here(including the album's great cover design!) is just in its right place. Compositions are influenced by 60-70's lounge cinema (not least from Ennio Morricone), 60's pop, musicals and modern electronica. Everything is perfectly in balance together and with Alison Goldfrapps haunting voice, this music just blows your mind.

It might take a few listen times before you get into the album but that is with all the great records. It's mostly very slow and chill but this is more than just another chill out record. Arrangements are very special with their mix of cinematic strings, melodica, electronic noices, harpsichord and piano. The album is just under 40-minutes which is just a perfect length of this kind of album. There is no fillers here. Every song is a killer and that makes this so far one the best albums made in new millenium. Highly recommended!

This is absolutely beautiful piece of work from Ennio Morricone. This is one the greatest soundtracks from morricone from this period. Morricones great arrangements mixed with Edda del Orsos beautiful and haunting vocals makes this masterpiece sounding very pleasentely psychedelic. There are various version of the main theme and also of "La Bambola" but that is only plus here because both of these compositions are absolutely stunningly beautiful and Morricone does nice variations for them. Then there's also some more creepy stuff and experimential freaky jazz.

If you like for example Goldfrapp's "Felt Mountain" then don't you dare miss this masterpiece. There's no doubt from where Alison and Will has got their influences.

Piero Umiliani is one of the greatest composers in Italian soundtrack scene and he has composed many classic italian soundtracks in the sixties and seventies. This album is an instrumental double album he made in the early seventies.
Music here is groovy and jazzy in some places. And Umiliani was pretty good keyboard player too and here he is showing little of his talent.
The album is mix of more funky tracks and more lounge tracks. Umiliani's sense of melody is presented here very nicely. He uses flute, moog and horns with funky beats and groovy basslines to create a fine collection of songs. Not every song is very memoriable but this is a fine choice for fans of funky grooves and lounge.

Metro Area's debut album is easily one of the greates dance records ever. It calls you to the dancefloor immediately but it's still musically interesting enough for a home listening. Many dance/house records tend to be too limited and not so interesting though they might work great in the dancefloor. I have listen Metro Area's album for a couple years now and i still find it interesting. This is not just a typical houserecord. Its mix of disco, electrofunk, house and boogie is just amazing. Every song is a killer in its own way.

Metro area don't lean on to cliches that sometimes are too obvious in this genre. With rhodes, live string section, warm analog keyboards and modern loops they create their on timeless sound.
The thing that makes this record so great is the songs. There are so many musical ideas in every song and there are just very few elements there. But when something comes in it always sounds that this is excactly where it should come. You can dance with it or you can just sit and listen to the songs and their every different minimalist elements.

If you like modern dance music or just rhythm music generally then i can't recommend this record enough. This is already a classic. Can't wait 'til the next album.

This is a cool collection of songs from the Dirty Harry films. There's only one dialoge in the album and it's that classic "do u feel lucky??" by Eastwood. Album opens with that and right after the dialogue we get right to the point. Warm rhodes, funky bass and drums with some dissonance stringchord we go to the "Main Theme" which is Lalo Schifrin in his best. The "Scorpios theme" is another killer with its human vocal line and groovy beat. There are also some disturbing stringwork and "suspense" music which does not hold up so well without its original concept. And when we get to the 80's stuff it's just seems that Schifrin has lost his way at some point. Plastic synthsounds and terrible sounding drum machines is more near to "Beverly Hills Cop" sound that Schifrin's great scores before.

All in all, there are enough some good stuff to make this worth to buy and for those familiar with Schifrin's other 70's funky scores will definitely have something in this compilation.