solarium - "parts i-xiv"

another winner from swiss label of the moment spezialmaterial (caned by seed and skam at their parties), following solotempo's fine ocd : ten cd. once you've pried open the novel box (fabricated from scandinavia's finest ikea trees), you're in for one of the year's better idm releases. what with the rumbling bass and minor-key sawtooth melodies and all the orthogonal beats, it gets harder and harder to tell bands like this apart from markant or arovane, circa 1999, but a sturdy sense of craft keeps parts i-xiv ahead of the pack. carsten endraß could learn a valuable lesson in brevity from solarium, whose sombre, melancholic songs never overstay their welcome or lose the plot.

i'm really grooving on some of these new bands that are still partying like it's 1998, like posthuman, chicago's own string theory (both of whom debuted in limited quantities on smak, who are basically skam, but... erm, aren't.), gridlock* and astrobotnia. fans of any of these bands would do well to find this cd (stow the case, it coats your cd with a fine layer of dust and the overpowering sawdust and glue smell is making me ill) while it's cheap. i got mine from boomkat.com.

*yesh, i know gridlock aren't new, but their early numb and placebo effect covers don't count.

for more information, please visit spezialmaterial.

music

film

text

playlists