Into Topological Space
(World Domination)
by Lex Marburger
How can you go wrong with a comp that starts with Perfume Tree? If you haven’t heard, this band sounds like My Bloody Valentine mixed with Björk mixed with solid dub. As Into Topological Space is an album of remixes, they contribute a track of “My Worst Friend (Flight Path Mix),” holding back on the screaming guitar distortion, while pushing their computer elements of ambient and electro. They have a middle section that’s truly stunning. Imagine effects knobs being twisted to the max, creating a psychedelic raver’s mess, beautiful mess, drifting back into a semblance of song, but gloriously uninhibited by song form. Globo makes clear that this World Domination sampler is going strictly for the electric generation, for they give us “Truly Independent (Jack Dangers Mix),” which is a digitized work (Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto mixed it for them) of statiked tones and grooving beats. They even give us a little dub taste in their breakdown halfway through. Loveflag‘s little ditty, “The Queen of People’s Hearts,” is an obvious sampler job. That is, they empty samplers to an obvious (and eventually redundant) effect, but it’s not that bad, as the samples are of Princess Di and a group of adulating children, used for ironic effect. I’m getting the feeling that this would be more effective if I was on a dance floor with too much… uh… coffee! that’s it! running though my system. A slight palate freshener (read, 39 seconds long) is White Girl‘s “Move Into The Positive,” which is nothing more than a funk beat and some sound effects processed to sound like it’s being played through an AM radio. That launches straight into Lift Laboratories, another dance floor band, with the hard-hitting “Sub-Zero (70% Mix),” and this makes me want to experience this in a large crowd of people, zonked out of my mind. If you aren’t, you’re losing the desired effect. You must jump up and down uncontrollably to reach the mind state that these boys (I think they’re boys) are in.
Sometimes nepotism comes in handy, as Shriekback contributes two tracks, “Terribly Swollen” and “The Bastard Sons of Enoch (Enochian Operation).” Dave Allen runs the label for John Dee’s sake! (Anyone who gets that last reference wins a free copy of Lollipop. Offer limited.) Still, they’ve come a long way from “Parthenogenesis,” serving up some superspeed electro beats and subsonic bass, with enough sampled vocals to keep everyone happy. This is followed by (unfortunately) standard techno fare. However, it soon moves into a different gear with Orbitronik and their “Freedom Machine 2000,” which grinds hard and slow into my head with sounds of banking planes and Middle Eastern vocals. It’s a hypnotic groove that dominates the senses. It then shifts into an almost rock feel, if it had a guitar in it, which it doesn’t. White Girl surfaces again, briefly, passing so swiftly I didn’t have time to latch onto it, before Loop Guru bursts onto the scene and gives us “Soulus (Submarine Variation #2).” This band is another fave, they trance me out into another world, beats layering on top of one another, and then throwing in found melodies from around the world. This track is more electronic than their usual fare, but it’s no less effective. The first disc rounds off with Perfume Tree again, sensually bassing us while angelic female vocals slide down our backs. Yes, that’s right, I said there’re two discs, and wait `til you hear what’s on the second one…
It’s 43 solid minutes of Sky Cries Mary! I don’t think I need to go into much detail here. If you know the band, you’ll get it, and if you don’t know them, go get this! To be brief, they have three tracks: “Every Iceberg is Afire (Steve Hillage 12″ Mix)” (Steve Hillage, by the way, is of Gong fame, so go get this disc!), “The Movement of Water,” which is a half tempo link to the tune “Walla Walla” and sounds like Eno in his Before and after Science phase while on Quaaludes, so go get this disc!, and “Death of a Star (Live),” which lasts for over 26 minutes and is a Can-like, exploratory, drug-addled trip of a track based on “4AM” and it kicks ass, so go get this disc! I hope I’ve made myself clear.
