Albums: Future Primitives 1995 Roadrunner Records Click image for larger view 1) Mantra - 9:34 2) Lost Tribe - 8:98 3) Telekinetic Warriors - 9:12 4) Solar Temple - 10:28 5) Sonic Ritual - 7:01 6) Seeds of Harmony - 7:20 7) Blackhole Amizon - 8:13 8) Ceremonial Chant - 7:35 Phaze Two 199? Third Mind Records Cover not available. 1) Get Religion - 6:09 2) Down And Out - 6:08 3) The Process - 6:08 4) Can You Move It - 5:36 5) Dream On - 6:25 6) Funky Hell - 6:12 7) Phaze One - 6:00 8) Truth - 6:22 9) Corollary - 4:13 10) Monument - 9:15 11) Fall Out - 4:00 - - R E V I E W - - Bill And Rhys's Intermix Adventure continues with this, the second album by their more commercial house/dance/techno spinoff. When compared with the excellent eponymous debut it becomes apparent that Leeb and Fulber have, as promised, kept the Intermix sound reasonably up to date rather than just producing more of the same as before. While the sound is still primarily a house/techno mutation with elements of other Leeb/Fulber projects such as Front Line Assembly and Delerium, this time there's more of a hardcore techno element. It's still not exactly state of the art, but it isn't quite as anachronistic (in club terms, where the "in" sound seems to change almost daily) as the first album was and this'll no doubt please Third Mind for whom the debut album was a surprisingly big seller. Phaze Two does occasionally give the impression of being something of a rush job though. The cover artwork is simplistic and dull (compare it with the wonderful abstract shapes and clean design of the Intermix cover) and the CD appears to have been padded out a bit by the inclusion of "Dream On" and "Funky Hell" both of which originally appeared on vinyl only at the same time as the first album. The same might be true of the music - while Intermix wasn't exactly All Their Own Work there seems to be a lot of sampling of other artists music in Phaze Two. Of course, I missed a lot of the borrowings on the first album since I wasn't familiar with the artists they were borrowing from but this time I've already spotted the likes of Kraftwerk, Clock DVA and Recoil (the last in several places) as well as a number of samples that I've definitely heard before somewhere else but can't quite place and a bundle that I couldn't even hope to identify. Ignoring the audio piracy (it's even admitted on the cover, where Leeb and Fulber are credited with "Programming, Processing, Piracy") how does the music measure up? The answer is...it varies. "Get Religion" doesn't really differ drastically from the more up-tempo tracks on the debut - a mixture of techno beats and distinctly FLA-esque synth lines. The result is "smoother" than FLA but identifiable as having the same source. "Down And Out" is more housey and, were it not for some rather tired diva-type samples it wouldn't have been out of place on Intermix either. The appearance of vocal samples is a shame, as the first album was noticeable for picking out the best elements of its sources while living the cliches of the genre (wailing divas, "Whoo! Yeah!" etc) behind. "The Process" sees the first Al-identifiable samples appearing, with sounds from Recoil's Bloodline and Clock DVA's Man-Amplified popping up. The track is more influenced by current techno and dance trends than anything on the last album was but despite the presence of more female vocal samples, acquits itself reasonably well. "Can You Move It" features more borrowed house beats along with some rather interesting samples that seem to be taken from an s.f. film of some sort (unless they've got the technology together to perform arm transplants without me noticing), more Clock DVA samples and what sounds like a duck call. There's also the familiar retinue of Delerium-esque choral effects. Nice track. "Dream On" dates from the time of Intermix (yes, it's a whole year old, positively ancient) and while it doesn't exactly stick out like a sore thumb, there is enough of a difference in the sample sources to make its relative age apparent. No 1992 albums like Bloodline or Man-Amp this time, instead the one sample here that I can identify is taken from Kraftwerk's The Mix (although there might be a sample from Clock DVA's The Hacker in there too). "Funky Hell" is also typical Intermix fare, but not exactly outstanding. "Phaze One" is a move into hardcore techno territory, featuring rather cliched Altern8-ish sounds fused with a more house-styled beat. "Truth" has rather more of an EBM ring to it (eg simpler beat with a slight metallic clang to it) but is spoiled slightly by sampled female vocals and over-familiar crashing synth chords. "Corollary" moves from an ambient atmospheric intro into a repeated sample taken from Recoil's "Electro-Blues For Bukka White" (itself a sample based track) and interesting synth work to make it one of the better and more typically Intermix tracks on the album. "Monument" suffers from a distinct case of multiple-personality disorder. Over the course of its nine minutes it mutates from a high BPM techno track (grimace from yours truly) complete with every bleep in the book into a much more pleasant affair with lush string synths, piano and gurgling water. Then it turns back again. The end result, a track that I both like and dislike in equal degree. The disc is rounded off by "Fall Out", complete with yet more Recoil samples and a relaxed house-beat. Again, a good track. Overall, I'm quite pleased with the album, especially the first half. It's not quite as good as Intermix (there's nothing in the league of "Requiem Dub", for example) and takes correspondingly longer to really get into but if you liked Intermix a lot you probably won't be disappointed by this. The sound has moved a couple more notches along the line that connects Front Line Assembly style EBM to contemporary dance music (in the dance music direction) but for the most part it's not too much of a jump. I find the Intermix albums something of a puzzle though - I don't normally have much time for house/techno etc but I've liked both of the albums so far a great deal, it's as though they manage to drag the limits of my musical tastes a little further in that particular direction than they usually go. Erland Rating +2 O-------------------------------------------------------------------------O (c) Copyright A.W.R. Crawford 1991-1992. This review may be reproduced freely as long as both review and copyright notice remain intact. Please ask for permission before reproducing this review commercially. O-------------------------------------------------------------------------O Intermix 199? Third Mind Records Cover not available. 1) Anguish 2) s+m=y 3) Targetted 4) Requiem Dub 5) Cum & Get It! 6) Dead Ladder 7) Soviet Low 8) Voices - - R E V I E W - - The splintering of Front Line Assembly continues. Not content with starting up Delerium for their soundtrackesque music and Noise Unit for a slightly different flavour of dance industrial than FLA itself, we now have Intermix, Front Line Assembly's house faction. The group seems to have been formed to allow Leeb and Fulber to experiment with a rather more commercial dance sound. The end result is...interesting. It sounds pretty much as you'd expect for the most part - a housified Front Line Assembly. No vocals though. The combination is surprisingly enjoyable, they've chosen the best parts of the house/dance sound (i.e. the interesting bits) and dumped most of the cliches (no "Yo!" or "Whoo! Yeah!" noises). There's also more evidence of Leeb/Fulber's alter-ego as Delerium here too - the energy and aggression of the FLA sound is tempered by the calm grandeur that characterises the Delerium releases. Now if only Leeb and Fulber could channel some of the quality and attention to detail they've put into this and the Delerium albums back into Front Line Assembly, which has been getting a bit repetitive of late... Recommended. Erland Rating: +2 O-------------------------------------------------------------------------O (c) Copyright A.W.R. Crawford 1991-1992. This review may be reproduced freely as long as both review and copyright notice remain intact. Please ask for permission before reproducing this review commercially. O-------------------------------------------------------------------------O Sample Sources for Intermix (from FLA UK Homepage, special thanks to Mark Wagner) E-mail