Electric Birds - Gradations

Electric Birds - Gradations (Mille Plateaux, MP 112, 2002) (320)

1 Cyclist
2 Nightriders
3 Painted Rooms
4 Slow Motion
5 Astral Traveling
6 Radia
7 Vox Canon
8 Gradations
9 Rian

A couple good Amazon reviews:

In the fast n' furious world of electronic music, the period between the impact of influence and its implementation is remarkably short. No sooner had the legions of Autechre clones seen their white cd covers gleaming from the racks of the local record store, then the error-electronics popularized by Oval were codified as the Glitch. While scores of 2000's class of headbobbing laptoppers have already faded into rightful obscurity, Mike Martinez has managed to grab that elusive golden ring: a release on Mille-Plateaux. Not that Martinez's Electric Birds project needed the stamp of approval of the Force-Inc empire: his music abounds with warmth, subtle detail, and layer upon layer of melody and texture. The sonic ecosystem of "Gradations" compares positively with the work of my personal 2000 artist of the year, Vladislav Delay. Before his Luomo project catipulted him to relative dance-pop stardom, Delay released four of 2000's best discs. What set his work apart from the encroaching clicks n' cuts hordes was the same thing that elevates Electric Birds: change, detail, and a prismatic sense of time. "Gradations" is the first work I've heard since Delay's that takes electronica out of the land of the loop. True, repetition IS part of Matinez's game. It's difficult to work succesfully in the post-techno aesthetic without it. However, his music contains innumerable unique events that squirn through the musical landscape. Scrapes, clicks, pops, chimes, mysterious percussive sounds, subtle ripples in the melodic fabric, shifting beat matrices, expansions and contractions, and so on all add to the richness of the music on this disc. Funk and deep house influences make these sounds as inviting and seductive as they are innovative. A few of these tracks would work as well at a candlelit dinner as they would at an opening of a gallery show of multimedia artwork. Others would send your send your date packing. That's the real strength of Electric Birds, where a unified style, with constant flux as its key component, meets a variety of moods and energy levels. For experimental electronica that's easy on the ears, but rewarding for the mind, look no further.  

There's something pleasing about the endless iterations of click and cut-based music, particularly when it's as warm and inviting as _Gradations_, from Electric Birds. "Cyclist" starts the album out on a neutral IDM note, but once the layers start building, as on the purring "Nightriders," things seem to come to life. "Painted Rooms" sounds like the illegitimate love child of Akufen and Tim Hecker -- not a bad thing at all! -- while "Astral Traveling" blends digital funk with some nice acoustic guitar riffs. The throbbing "Radia" is full of warm, suspended notes with some added bits for flavor. "Vox Canon" sets some tinkling tones to an off-kilter rhythm that never seems to sync up quite perfectly, not even as the track's speed begins to decay. The title track serves up some of that Basic Channel dub goodness, and the final track, "Rian," chugs out on a quasi-industrial dirge that settles into its groove 2/3rds of the way through. Clicks and cuts to make your day!