Godspeed You Black Emperor!, Divine Comedy, Deaf Center, Godflesh, Deathprod, Broadway Project, Neurosis, Brighter Death Now, Stars Of The Lid, Arvo Part, Max Richter, Olafur Arnulds, Peter Broderick, Library Tapes, Sylvain Chauveau, Machinefabriek, Arve Henriksen, Esmerine, Johann Johannson, Portishead, Black Sabbath, Terrorizer, Morbid Angel, BJ Nilsen, Jasper TX, William Basinski, Benga, Burial, M83, The Low Lows, Efterklang, etc...
David Dando-Moore is making Massive Attack nervous. His latest opus as Detritus, Fractured, opens mid-phrase, hurling the listener directly into the mix with a jet-assisted flyby of strings and beasts, and Persian-inflected vocals weave through the symphonic fireworks of classical bridges and ferocious breaks. The air raid of "Desolate (5-Htp mix)" is followed by the ground assault of "Collide," which storms out of the stereo with equal force. It's not until the third track, "Detrimental," that Dando-Moore takes a breath, and even then, the orchestral Love Theme style of "Detrimental" is broken by tight drum programming into an anthemic story of love given, taken, broken, spurred, and won again.
Dando-Moore's work has always has always been readily able to reach in and squeeze your heart, using classical arrangements to get at the soft parts of our psyches; and he lays down floor-ready beats like an old DJ pro, knowing just how fast and hard the audience is willing to shake their asses. But here, he pulls out new tricks, like the samples of children playing in "Lethe" that makes the string-driven melody that much more heartbreaking, or the bombastic guitar that thrashes through the hardened beats of "Diolch" like Rammstein showing up to play at your mother's garden party.
"Shifts" wiggles with serpentine glee, scattering shards of broken glass about the room, and while it tries on a few shiny dresses to make you think that it isn't completely feral, there something about the way the beats move that say you shouldn't turn your back on it (and sure enough, the drum break explosion is just that sign of uncontrolled chaos that you've been looking for). "Interrupted" dances in the moonlight, an undulating downtempo track shifts back and forth between the robust motion of a throbbing beat and the more diaphanous delicacy of a string-inflected melody.
Oh, yes, Massive Attack should be afraid, as should Craig Armstrong and David Arnold for that matter. Every movie producer needing a hip orchestral breakbeat soundtrack is probably already dialing Dando-Moore(IGLOO MAG)
Having to disagree with an artist does not necessarily have to be a bad thing. When we last spoke to Dave Dando-Moore after the release of his “Thresholds” EP, he labelled the material for his upcoming new full-length as “pretty depressing”. Now it has been published, many will concur. And yet, underneath its sinisterly shimmering surface, a new and highly promising force has begun to stirr.
It goes without saying, of course, that “Fractured” is not exactly a happy work. Piano melodies are again spiralling down a snail-shell-shaped staircase into the void and electronic string quartets are caught in loops of minuscule development, offering no resolution. More than on previous efforts, Dando-Moore is also flexing his muscle, adding edgey powerchord riffs to the arrangements and turning “Collide” or “Diolch” into wordless metal monsters.
While this classifies “Fractured” as an aggressive and angry work, it remarkably enough never results in complete hopelessness. Something has happend in the meanderings of the most excusitely detailed drum n bass beats ever created by someone who hardly ever listens to drum n bass, an optimistic flame has sparked from the positive pads that float through multilayered tracks like “Shifts”. After one has chewed one’s way through the creaking and groaning wall of sharp-edged percussion, the breakneck loops and the pervasive sadness, a golden and lustrous core is slowly appearing that is truly unique.
The conclusion is quite simple: While Dandy-Moore may still be using his music as a form of self-therapy, he has aquired a mastery of his tools which enables him to sublimate this fury and frenzy into pure energy. His arrangements have become richer, his dynamics more subtle, his sound more ecclectic and his vocabulary more concilliatory. Who, among the listeners of that wild beast “Thresholds”, would have expected a tender instrumental love song like “Lethe” from this man?
Remixes by 5-HTP, DJ Hidden (an incredible stab at Ambient Drum n Bass) and Keef Baker, as much as they may differ from the rest of the material, are not out of place one bit in this colourful tour de force. Thus, even though it is certainly a logical progression in the Detritus discography, “Fractured” may also be considered the beginning of a new phase, whose exact destination probably remains undisclosed even to David Dandy-Moore.
“Very, very happy with the final product.”, David posted on his blog with regards to the album. There’s nothing to disagree about there. (TOKAFI)
Listen here...I will not tolarate this silent treatment anymore. Either you love me, and the kids, like you claim, or you don't. Which one is it??? I'm hurting here.
Hey hows you? cheers for being a friend, hope you liked the music x just wanted to mention iam touring all over the UK from september for a year, traveling all over got the first 4 months up and adding more and more to it, the first 3 months is for Busking For Cancer :) in Aid for cancer research, all the shows are free so would be awesome to see you at a show supporting wat im touring for, check out our dates and if we arnt playing in your area then please do let us know cause it is for a FULL year so we wanna get everywhere and anywhere :) also recording new stuff this weekend so new songs will be up :) anyways hoping ur having a good start to the summer.
Boy, I've got two willies. One is called boy george and the other girl tony. Gavin will get his skinny lil ass whopped next time I see him. Which is ummm, prob never. haha. Yes. I'm talking about your lover TONY MACARONI.
Is that how you get your boys? Running around naked, throwing yourself at non moving vehicles? tsk tsk tsk. I could teach you how to get boyz with less effort. :) Ask Gavina, he/she(what ever the fuck it is) hehe, has had major luck in that department cus of me.
No, that was not it, but WHOOAAA!!! My mental media can't handle that.
Too much info!!! Oh, curious, have you ever tried throwing yourself in front of a parked car? Mr.Pickles has, and of course he failed. See, he's a loser, he just hasn't realized that yet.
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