Karma Police (UK) - Angelix

Hear The Track Here

If the words ambient and chilled make you adopt a glassy stare and increasingly floppy limbs, it's probably better if you stopped reading right now before you fall asleep. Go for a run around the block or something, come back much refreshed. As you already know (to your cost probably), I also suffer from the ambient/chilled ennui and that run usually does the track, in fact I just did one before I sat down to write this review. Can't be sleeping on the job after all (Ed: oh? you mean this is you awake??). Neal Alderson (aka Karma Police) already bears the scars of my past maulings proudly because he is more than happy to stick up for a genre he obviously loves and, truth to tell, I've been quite gentle with him.

All that stops now...muahahahaha! OK, bit over the top, I admit.

I think, to be fair, that my lukewarm attitude towards Neal's work is mostly my antipathy towards this kind of material but it also has to do with the age of the material itself. A great many of his tracks are in fact from some years ago, Angelix for example is from 2004. Now whether Neal has remixed/remastered this I have no idea but it sounds pretty good for it's age, bright and clear with the right amount of punch. That's never been a problem between us, the man sure as eggs is eggs knows how to put music together and even those with even the slightest taste for electronica will find much to like in this.

Unfortunately, to my ears, it does sound dated. Had I heard it back in the day, I would certainly have plenty to say about it, but that was then and this is now. However, that's me being crabby again, I suspect because I can find nothing wrong whatsoever with the track technically or instrumentally; the pads are warm and comfy, the sequences flow effortlessly and the drums are exactly what is required. Unfortunately none of it seems to go anywhere special and, once you have heard it a few times, it tends to sound very repetitive. It would probably work a charm with a decent vocal going on though, and that may well be on the cards for all I know.

Recommended electronica instrumental.