Behind the strangely underwhelming Another Electronic
Musician moniker hides Jase Rex, a west-coast-based
musician whose releases for net label En:peg Digital,
and compilation appearances, most recently on Audiobulb’s
Intricate
Maximals, have proven rather intriguing and
promising. Now delivering his debut album for the n5MD
imprint, home of Proem
and Funckarama, Rex attempts to fully develop his blend
of digitalia and narcotic dub beats.
With tinted rhythms, foggy soundscapes and intricate
melodic patterns all woven into dense sequences, Rex
offers here a rather mature image of his work. Yet the
rather unassuming opener, H+ is symptomatic
of how this album sometimes falls short of achieving
what it sets out to. Here, Rex tentatively tries to
build some intricate and minimal structures but never
quite manages to. It is as if he had stripped his composition
of all its vital elements, only to retains the outside
carcass. As he tries to fill the gaps, the lack of clear
direction contributes to the attention of the listener
dropping too soon. While Extended follows pretty
much a similar path, things become meatier with Collapse
and Enclosure. Still experimenting with minimal
sonic and rhythmic formations, Rex crafts repetitive
patterns with more conviction and allows for these compositions
to become more interesting.
The rest of the album goes from one end of this spectrum
to the other. If tracks such as Field Felt
or Phase demonstrate a taste for elegant atmospheric
moments, and These Given or Non Sum Qualis
Eram for instance are beautifully crafted, elsewhere,
as on Pocket or the aptly-titled Careless,
this album is let down by a certain lack of focus, with
minimalist settings becoming the purpose as opposed
to a simple mean to develop a more specific sequence.
If Jase Rex’s debut album sometimes fails to build
on its own promises, it remains a rather enjoyable collection
of modern electronica and certainly shows off Rex’s
potential not only as a musician, but also as a producer.
Whereas the compositions at times appear to lack enough
soul to exist on their own, Rex’s undeniable care
with which he assembles them manage to just about salvage
this project from total oblivion.
2.7/5 |
