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Jean-Michel, "New Medium Softpack"
Jean-Michel's second CD release is an excellent follow-up to Marshmallow Rooms (see the brain vol 3 issue 17),containing some pretty ambience mixed with electro-crunchiness, whackedbreakbeats, and old-school techno, providing a an aurally stimulatingexperience. Like most of my favorite intelligent-techno bands,Jean-Michel expertly oscillates his effects and adds and subtractssounds to keep things evolving, as if a story is being told. But whatsets him apart is his excellent use of acoustic guitar to set theelegent mood, juxtoposed with a seasoning of brief splashes ofhighly-processed, other-worldly noise, guaranteed to grab yourattention.On the recording side, there is one gripe - his CD tracks frequentlyare at a level which is a tad too high and the overloading, whileperhaps adding character to some of the songs, is sometimes obviouslyunintentional. Perhaps his many vinyl releases do not share thisproblem? His very obscure German record label, Eleganz,seems to be primarily a vinyl shop, always releasing his songs first onthe esteemed 12" format. Good luck finding his stuff on this side ofthe atlantic.
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