Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Unread Pages - Walk On Caramel

Hear The Track Here

When I reviewed Unread Pages' Ghost Faces (September 2008) I wrote 'It also shows a rare intelligence at work, and one I will definitely be keeping an eye on in the future' so I have no excuse whatsoever for not following that up - except that there is only so much time in a day. As it happened, this was also the first Unread Pages track I had ever heard and it made an excellent impression on me, not least because of it's excellent vocal work. Going through the tracks on his Soundclick page gives you the impression that here is a musician who isn't one for boundaries in what he does; as eclectic as they come, as Ghost Faces so amply showed. So, here we are some almost six months on and this time we are dealing with Electronica:IDM - a genre I have often found worthwhile before.

'Just messing around with two chords and glitchy percussion' he states in the song comments and I have to say that's probably as fair a description as it gets. Consequently to really get much out of this track you'd probably have to be a gearhead (Soundclick has more than its share so no problem there) and definitely into dance forms of electronica. There is a strain of experimental oddity running through the track too that may well put some people off long before they get to the end of this five minute long track.

As a self proclaimed gearhead I can definitely appreciate some of the routines Unread Pages has brought to bear on this otherwise excellent slice of electronica; some of the licks are really good for example. Is this, we ask ourselves, enough for it to appeal to a wider audience though? I guess Unread Pages, like most of us, don't really care about that side of it but it is a valid point; why else do we do this other than to get heard, and by as many people as possible? In that respect, Walk On Caramel probably wouldn't have the kind of reputation making legs as - say - Ghost Faces but its still a nice peice of weirdo electronica nonetheless.

Recommended IDM.

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