Phil Western has at least a decade of experience in electronic musicand is currently a member of Download and platEAU. "Dark Features" isthe debut release from Vancouver based The Record Company and it picksup right where Western's 1998 solo album "The Escapist" (co-produced byTim Hill, who has also played with platEAU) left off. This is premiumtextured techno: a thick mesh of synth and sample ambiance andprogrammed beats with additional organic elements like voice andguitars. Phil's vocals appear on half a dozen tracks - they're moreunnecessary than they are annoying, ditto for many of the numerous,seemingly random spoken samples. "Fight No More", "Dirty" and "DMT"ride strong bass and guitar grooves, the latter one being as active asthe psychedelic substance it is named after with Western singing theword 'dimethyltryptamine' over a bright and bouncy pop riff. Gorgeousambient moments endure in several tracks, most notably the tail ends of"Embryo" and "Duke". "Bring That Home, Buffalo" is downright peculiarby throwing banjo playing into the mix. But the most surprising andstunning track of all, the one which will surely confound many alistener, is "Be the Fool". Here Western sings and plays acousticguitar solo for an emotional and atmospheric song that approaches thesound of late '80s American Music Club. Great stuff. I hope Westernfurther explores these heretofore unrevealed singer songwriter and popproclivities. Act now and three more techno oriented tracks areavailable on a bonus orange marble 10" with the first 300 orders directfrom the label at colourspeaks.com .
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