MINT
The Metronomical Boy
BOLTLP013
Boltfish Recordings 2011
11 Tracks. 51mins06secs

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London-based artist and co-owner of Boltfish Recordings Mint, AKA Murray Fisher, returns two years on from his last full length offering, Cardboard Rocketships, with his third album. Based around a quaint little children’s story he devised especially for the album, The Metronomical Boy pretty much takes off from where its predecessor left off, building on gentle melodic pieces and crisp electronica, tainted with occasional glitches and bleeps.

Fisher has been releasing music since 2004, has published a number of EPs on U-Cover, Lacedmilk Technologies, Rednetic or Duotones, and has been featured on countless compilations. His debut album, Binary Counting, was published on U-Cover in 2007, and was followed two years later with Cardboard Rocketships, with a remix album, Glued, Stapled, Remixed, with contributions from Cheju, Cyan341, Yvat, Posthuman and many more, released last year.

The album opens with Queasy, a track originally featured on Rednetic’s One Point Two compilation five years ago, on which Fisher builds a slightly psychedelic backdrop from pulsating soundwaves, upon which he attaches a contrasting glitchy breakbeat. Things take on a smoother turn after that, with delicate chiming melodies and rounded electronic sounds defining much of the rest of the album, from the child-like innocence of tracks such as Ina’s Special Day or Interluded, which are not without recalling the sugar-coated electronica of Plone’s For Beginner Piano, to the more robust Cartouche, Free Association, Letting Go Quietly or Daub, which find ground in the vicinity of ISAN.

At times, Fisher drops beats almost entirely, favouring instead sumptuous atmospheric settings. On Darker Than A Beginning, piano and electronics circle over a carpet of tiny glitches, whilst Air Chamber is a short, yet vast-sounding piece of dreamy ambient peppered with hints of Tangerine Dream.

Mint’s sonic world is purposely warm and inviting, based on gentle electronic textures, occasionally broken beats and charming melodies. This unthreatening approach is further reflected in many of Murray Fisher’s title choices, and continues to define his work. With its embedded story and its soft approach, The Metronomical Boy could almost be subtitled ‘An introduction to electronica for children’, yet it doesn’t take away the fact that Mint creates some wonderfully engaging electronic music.

3.8/5

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