Kole McRae - Earth

Hear The Track Here

I wouldn't expect any of you to remember that I actually reviewed this musician a couple of times before, although it was a long, long time ago. So I was a bit surprised when up pops Kole McRae a while ago with a new project. Then it took a while for everything to finally be aligned so I have had this material for a while and finally - last night - I get a site to send you guys to. Aaahh, but would it be worth it? Let me take you back to Lets Sing Together (August 2007), the second of two tracks I reviewed at the time. I wrote 'Funnily enough, even through the flubs, mistimings, mistuning and other obviously non-essential rubbish getting the the way, there is no doubt that in other ways Kole is clever enough to do something well good - given the time and practice' in that review so let's see.... 2007...2011 (counting on fingers with tongue out) well, plenty of time to practice.

What I got when I downloaded it was what appeared to be a seven track EP/album called Earth. I may be wrong on that and maybe Kole will put us right. First track (Future World) doesn't exactly convince me, but it is electronica and that may well be my problem with it. Again, nothing seems to be that much out of place and it has a definite experimental feel which I found quite refreshing. What I didn't find quite so refreshing was the tendency to use 'factory' sounds, especially of the brass/key kind and that just doesn't sound right to my ears and is particularly noticeable, for example, in Computer Song.

What comes across in all these tracks is an underlying spacey theme, and the tracks to go with such a journey. You will have heard much like this, especially if you have a liking for electronica but hey, it's a noble enough effort for sure. Obviously, the intervening years have taught Kole a thing or two about stringing all those notes together and making a diamond necklace out of it, but I think maybe the next stage of the operation must be to spend a bit more time on presentation. While much of this project sounds distinctly promising, it is let down constantly by being IMO a little too clean and precise, as well as having kinda bog standard sounds in it. Nonetheless, if you like electronica with a very good melodic feel, this may interest you.

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