Beware, Renegade Platinum could well be Bogdan
Raczynski’s last album. At least that’s
what the press release claims. In fact, if this is the
first long player released by Bogdan for a while, it
actually collects four tracks from the I Will Eat
Your Children Too EP and five from his 96 Drum’n’Bass
Classixxx collection.
Enfant terrible of the Rephlex roster, Raczynski emerged
in 1999 with three albums released in the space of a
few months. Born in Poland, Bogdan has lived in the
US, Japan and Brazil before being spotted by the Braindance
Central gatekeepers on a pirate radio and brought over
to London. His first album, Boku Mo Wakaran,
which contained no less than twenty-six untitled tracks,
introduced Raczynski’s scarily hectic nonsensical
drum’n’bass style to an audience already
seriously pushed around by the likes of Aphex
Twin, Squarepusher,
Kid 606 and the hard-hitting approach of labels such
as Rephlex or Tigerbeat6. Raczynski’s playful
and utterly anarchic music was further developed on
his second album released only a few months later. Behind
hardcore beats and bouncing noises, Samurai Math
Beats seemed to open a bit more to melodies, although
very occasionally, an approach that would be further
developed on Raczynski’s third album, Thinking
Of You. Playing on the unpredictability of his
music, Bogdan’s fourth opus was a total shift
in style, as he deliberately dropped his over active
beats almost entirely to focus on melodic structures
and subtle soundscapes. Returning to his trademark breakcore
compositions for the faux compilation 96 Drum’n’bass
Classixxx, on which each track was attributed to
a different pseudonym of his, Raczynski’s most
recent collection of tracks very much treads on similar
ground.
Kicking off with one of Bogdan’s quirky little
fucked up songs, Renegade Platinum is as unrepentant
as any of Raczynski’s previous releases. Ranging
from quiet melodies to hardcore beats and noise constructions,
this album, although not entirely made of new material,
offers however an interesting insight into Raczynski’s
wacky world. Not as devoid of human elements as the
man’s first few efforts, Renegade Platinum
charms as much as it disconcert. As the album progresses,
the mood doesn’t fluctuate much from the rather
convulsive drum’n’bass typical of the man’s
work, as Raczynski maintains the pace all the way through.
It is only past the last ‘credited’ track
that things seem to calm down a bit, first with a cheesy
piece of melodic electronica, then with a low energy
drum’n’bass. The third non-credited track
is reminiscent of Raczynski’s more melodic work
on My Love I Love. The remaining inserts present
interesting variations on this same theme.
If this album might not entirely satisfy the fans due
to the small amount of proper new recordings, it will
however provide an interesting overview of Bogdan Raczynski’s
work, from the more hardcore side of his music to the
more introvert.
3.6/5 |
