Bump seeing as I didn't have the album when the thread originally came up.
I think a great deal of Gek's original post is 100% OTM. The point about needing more space in the vocals is spot on, although I do like a lot of the vocals and like the extra dimension they add to the tracks - I'd be really interested to hear dubs of a lot of the vocal tracks rather than either full vocal / purely instrumental.
My only other problem with it is that although the restraint and subtlety is part of what makes it work as an album, it'd be kind of nice if it occasionally gave in to the temptation to really break out and go flat out cheesy for a bit - as it is, it comes a bit close to being all tension and no release.
Other than that I'm absolutely loving it though.
Too many people in this thread are getting something confused that is quite important i think:
Music does not have to have SOUL to evoke emotions. You can get the most dry, clicky piece of music that sounds completely inhuman, and if it's good enough it will still make you feel something. Early techno is great at doing this - there's an ambiguity about what the producer themselves is feeling, but it can still make you feel alot.
Certainly part of what I love about this album is that for all that it's clean and precise and shiny, it's actually very emotionally engaging and varied. Although I'd say the point is more that music doesn't have to be humanistic and organic to have soul - and early techno is definitely a classic example of this.
And on dubstep not being dance music - I don't even think you have to go to a club to understand that good dubstep is great dance music. For me it's all about the tension in the beats between the 140bpm pace and all the other tempos that run through the music cos of the half step or whatever unusual rhythm is being used. It's not obvious dance music like digitalism or something, but it's very much danceable.
Absolutely agree with that too. What I find with dubstep a lot of the time is that I hear the swaying halftime headnod until I make a conscious effort to pick up on the double speed rhythm (or until someone plays a two-step or 4x4 track that lays it out flat) and bounce along with it but after that I'm locked into it and can't imagine how you could
not dance to this music. At least for quite a lot of dubstep. Some of it really is just plod without any uptempo element, but I don't think that's the majority.
Oh and to blow Ben UFO's trumpet for him a bit, if you want to hear the side of dubstep that isn't just wubwubwub THUMP wuwuwubwubwub THUMP CRANK and features a bit of swing, a bit of bounce, maybe even a bit of sex appeal, you could do a lot worse than check his show, Ruffage Sessions, on
www.subfm.com . It's on tonight at 8pm GMT or get one from the archives.