Cybotron:
Enter (Reissue):
Decision:
Out Now:
CD/2LP
★★★★★★★★☆☆
Originally released in 1983, you could be forgiven for judging this iconic platter on the merits (or lack of them) of the first song on this album. The title-track sounds like a Roxy Music tribute played by a Tubeway Army tribute act - and not in a good way. Lumpen proggy spaced-out electro-rock might be your cup of chai but considering what's to follow, it just doesn't add up.
So let's skip it and study the rest of this long-overdue reissue of what is an essential and influential work in the main. This edition comes as an expanded CD or a beautifully-packaged double vinyl set, sadly without a download code or CD accompaniment but nonetheless, a top-notch release.
Basically, you get the entire Enter album from Cybotron, the electronic pairing of Juan Atkins and Richard Davis, plus a swathe of extra singles, remixes and flipsides. Of the extras, the one track every self-respecting music fan should have is the Jose Animal Remix of Clear, the Kraftwerkian track that has been sampled and resourced by many and used as a soundtrack by breaker's on a global scale - it's a stonewall classic.
And where the ideas are the simplest, Cybotron excel in spades. Alleys Of Your Mind, El Salvador and the bonuses of R-9 and Techno City (sampled by 808 State among others) all contain bruising drum-machines and occasionally cheesy syn-drums and keyboards, yet serve to point us in the direction of where Atkins, in particular, was eventually headed with his later Model 500 project.
Only final track Eden sounds out of place here - on paper, very much a clumsy mid-'80s horror-show of shiny-jacket synth-bass and lumpen drums, the whole piece's redeeming features are the production and the eerie sampled voices.
Summing up and given the content - Enter will appeal to lovers of Jonzun Crew, Flying Lotus, Dam-Funk and Black Dog Productions.
Enter (Reissue):
Decision:
Out Now:
CD/2LP
★★★★★★★★☆☆
So let's skip it and study the rest of this long-overdue reissue of what is an essential and influential work in the main. This edition comes as an expanded CD or a beautifully-packaged double vinyl set, sadly without a download code or CD accompaniment but nonetheless, a top-notch release.
Basically, you get the entire Enter album from Cybotron, the electronic pairing of Juan Atkins and Richard Davis, plus a swathe of extra singles, remixes and flipsides. Of the extras, the one track every self-respecting music fan should have is the Jose Animal Remix of Clear, the Kraftwerkian track that has been sampled and resourced by many and used as a soundtrack by breaker's on a global scale - it's a stonewall classic.
And where the ideas are the simplest, Cybotron excel in spades. Alleys Of Your Mind, El Salvador and the bonuses of R-9 and Techno City (sampled by 808 State among others) all contain bruising drum-machines and occasionally cheesy syn-drums and keyboards, yet serve to point us in the direction of where Atkins, in particular, was eventually headed with his later Model 500 project.
Only final track Eden sounds out of place here - on paper, very much a clumsy mid-'80s horror-show of shiny-jacket synth-bass and lumpen drums, the whole piece's redeeming features are the production and the eerie sampled voices.
Summing up and given the content - Enter will appeal to lovers of Jonzun Crew, Flying Lotus, Dam-Funk and Black Dog Productions.
