Song For Alpha once again shows Avery deconstructing his various influences and welding them together to achieve something remarkable. The result is a sweeping, majestic album that sends the listener soaring above mountainous peaks or gently brushing the canyon floor, often during the space of a single track. This is the album that will deservedly see Avery achieve the kind of acclaim and reverence that he has for those that have influenced him.
Five years is a long time in techno and Song for Alpha is a very different – but, I’m happy to say, equally wonderful – beast entirely.
This is a strong, sometimes truly beautiful, maturation of Avery’s work as a producer.
The sounds here do at times recall territories previously mapped by Brian and RD James, with or without MDMA, but Song For Alpha still makes for an electronic listening album of particular quality.
The sum of Avery’s restraint and genre blending is a record that carries echoes of the club, but aspires to so much more. Gone are the peak-time weapons that peppered Drone Logic; instead Avery teases us with tension and texture, ebbing and flowing his way to something truly hypnotic.
Bleary and euphoric, Song For Alpha suggests that Avery still loves his "transient life spent between nightclubs, flights, the passenger seats of cars and hotel rooms"—though maybe in a different way than when he started.
Songs for Alpha isn’t the revolutionary, pulping, “techno techno techno”-techno behemoth that consolidates Avery’s status as the champion of the Reebok short-back-and-sides masses; it, and Avery, evidently strive to be more than that. It’s a thoughtful, considered progression by one of the UK’s most thoughtful, considerate producers.
It might take more listens to connect with Alpha than with Drone Logic, but it's just as powerful and fascinating.
The hypnotic textures of BoC, the jittering slow motion techno of Aphex’s Selected Ambient Works, and even the more out there drunken synth melodies of LFO and early Autechre all seemingly play a part on Song For Alpha, and it’s to Avery’s credit that he’s managed to take those elements and make them sound so refreshing 20-plus years later.
It may be a few songs too long and it may require more brain power than your average album, but, if you are willing to put the time in, Song For Alpha rewards you with some of the nicest experimental workings of the year so far.
Daniel Avery has a specific set of tools in his arsenal and these are sometimes spread a bit thin, but Song For Alpha is still a worthy follow-up to 2013’s Drone Logic and an enjoyable listen.
Turning away from the mix of big-room energy and outré sounds that marked his debut, the London producer’s surprisingly muted second album is a catch-all for his varied tastes.
7/10
good
Fav tracks: Stereo L, Projector, Sensation, Clear, Days From Now, Slow Fade, Quick Eternity
Fine IDM / ambient/experimental techno album of Daniel Avery. Despite more than one hour relatively equally floating music and avoiding vocals it never gets boring. Both, listen to it focussed or in the background works well. Hints (but better listen to this album as a whole):
Stereo L.
Projector
Slow Fade
7/10
good
Fav tracks: Stereo L, Projector, Sensation, Clear, Days From Now, Slow Fade, Quick Eternity
Fine IDM / ambient/experimental techno album of Daniel Avery. Despite more than one hour relatively equally floating music and avoiding vocals it never gets boring. Both, listen to it focussed or in the background works well. Hints (but better listen to this album as a whole):
Stereo L.
Projector
Slow Fade
1 | First Light 1:38 | 75 |
2 | Stereo L 5:39 | 75 |
3 | Projector 5:14 | 75 |
4 | Tbw17 1:09 | 50 |
5 | Sensation 7:33 | 75 |
6 | Citizen // Nowhere 3:37 | 50 |
7 | Clear 5:33 | 75 |
8 | Diminuendo 7:00 | 75 |
9 | Days From Now 2:45 | 50 |
10 | Embers 1:55 | 50 |
11 | Slow Fade 5:32 | 100 |
12 | Glitter 6:42 | 75 |
13 | Endnote 0:08 | 50 |
14 | Quick Eternity 8:35 | 75 |
#7 | / | Mixmag |
#15 | / | DJ Mag |
#17 | / | The A.V. Club |
#20 | / | Fopp |
#27 | / | Q Magazine |
#28 | / | Rough Trade |
#33 | / | Loud and Quiet |
#53 | / | Piccadilly Records |
#77 | / | Drift |
/ | Esquire (UK) |