[Coll]: Habitat
Habitat

Collection of minimal electronic sound experiments. Most of these tracks have a real earthy texture that a lot of modern electronic music misses. For the most part these are expertly arranged and executed pieces with a very high fidelity (or, as the case is with a number of them, a crisp and precise low-fidelity). The slower, more patient tracks tend to be much richer. Each track brings a unique aesthetic and each is done superbly. Overall, it’s difficult to go wrong with the majority of the tracks on these two discs.
Indie kids will like: Disc 1: 8, 10 Disc 2: 4, 9, 11
Old people will like: Disc 1: 3 Disc 2: 3, 6,
Too cool for school john cage worshipers will like: Disc 1: 5, 7, 11, 12 Disc 2: 5, 10, 13
Any human with ears and a heart will like: Disc1: 4, 6, 13, Disc 2: 1, 15
Track reviews inside.

Disc 1
1. Slow, cinematic, oceanic haze.
2. Minimal click that incorporates live drums behind soft tones. Cool idea, not sure if it works.
3. A dynamic, genuinely musical peace offering.
4. Trembling feather-pitch chime-waves create what sounds like a medieval monastery on fast forward.
5. Slow, dark, docked boat Castlevania interlude.
6. Very slow, very quiet, very patient. Treble-tastic drone atop a buffer of pillowy, echoed, almost unintelligible howls.
7. Quick percussive experiment – say, STOMP meets John Cage.
8. Almost a hip hop rhythm. Close to a modern interpretation of DJ Shadow’s older stuff. Features an oddly tuned (and rather tinny) piano.
9. Arbitrary household noise + simple guitar. Kind of boring.
10. Trip hop kids will like this. Very Portishead. Slow 30 second intro before it launches into the good stuff.
11. Fun with wind chimes and eerily tuning violins. Builds.
12. Very slow unaltered traditional Eastern rhythm serves as the bed for a host of different sounds and combos.
13. Slow hiding in an LA river tunnel glitch + dark tones. Very calming.
14. Complex piano jaunt built on top of the single word “speak” stretched out over six minutes.

Disc 2
1. Feeback + fast but unintrusive drums give way to an insistent tonal typewriter crunch. Things get really interesting with about 2 minutes to go.
2. Fast acid hop drums. Emo raps.
3. Stoned uncertain noodling on a steely dan keyboard. Upbeat percussion enters with 1:45 to go.
4. A slower interpretation of the modern electro-R&B-pop aesthetic. Think YACHT meets Discovery.
5. Vocal experiments. Somewhere between one guy singing an epic Wagnerian chorus and a Gregorian chant. Varies in recording quality and sound bed.
6. Enthusiastic tribal percussion. Easy guitar plucks slowly morph into heavier feedback-laced jolts.
7. A slow garbled mess. A lot is going on here.
8. The first two minutes are nearly inaudible. Weird scurrying creatures rush around to a sullen piano-accordian dialog.
9. Crawling washy bedroom pop. Over-enunciated breathy lyrics. Sounds a lot like Atlas Sound. Builds in energy, but stays slow until the last minute, where shit starts to explode into a cacophony of every possible sound imaginable.
10. Quiet clinky burbling factory.
11. Short, chaotic track. Delirious vocals, quick progressions and ADD diversions. Similar to Animal Collective.
12. Glitchy persussion behind strummy progressing tones. Basically, OUTHUD with more involved drums.
13. Throbbing static and minimal pitter-patter.
14. Out of tune, poorly played guitar accompanied by different and various shit.
15. Slowly building angelic epiphany. Sunrise meets cathatic movie finale, but manages to skip past the realm of cliché and fast into the realm of awesome. Also, gets my vote for Track Title of the Year.