Kiss The Sound

Fullon might be about to start getting good again. Kiss The Sound is recognisably fullon, but with less pressure on the gas pedal. It all makes for a more mature, rounded sound than on Quantum’s last album and even his more recent tracks here and there; a real “sit up and take notice” release. Vicious Cycles has a nice sound to it, a very lazy kinda groove that’s simultaneously baggy and tight sort of like a pair of jeans when you’re tripping balls. There’s some rather laboured sampleage going on, with heaps of muttering about DNA and genomes and so forth but it works well. If nothing else, it doesn’t go too over the top. Push Me Up is a nice little collaboration with Timelock. Basically you’re looking at tight Israeli fullon but with the metaphysical limiters firmly in place – it builds, breaks , peaks and drops but without any of the bog standard tricks and screams that you’d normally get thrown at you. Even a snare rush doesn’t detract from what turns into nonchalant fullon. Cop Thing is more of the same. I like not having my brain bashed against the wall by an album, it’s a refreshing change. You keep thinking it’s going to boil over, and then it doesn’t – kind of like a very good blowjob. Need For Lead sounds like it’s suffering from slightly too little involvement on the producer’s part. It loses its way and, while all credit for trying something different, it sounds a bit too random and cobbled-together. Rebellion is very, very deep-set and it’s almost not there; likewise On The Edge is a little bit too angry to work well. The vibe would, ironically, be fine on fullpower but this sounds like one of the Doof records boys listened to underwater. Awaken is a gem. Quantum is playing with you here, and he’s doing it well. Cheekily, it chucks in progressive stabs over a backbone that’s the closest to normal fullon out of any of the tracks here. It teases, it eases, it just works bloody well as a track. Likewise, Kiss The Sound makes no claims to be a killa or to get brazilian ladies jumping up and down – it’s a deep, intelligent tune with a lazy riff that you can either listen to as being dark, or as relaxing and reassuring. Pretty rare stuff. X-Per-Minute is a collaboration with E-Jekt, and it’s interesting but suffers – I can feel the two producers trying to pull it one way then another; if it had the guts to keep its breakbeat then it would be better, but the final product is below-par compared with the rest of the album. And finally, you get a Quantum remix of Timelock’s Skylines, pretty nifty as remixes go, although it doesn’t really fit with the rest of the tracks on the album. Aside from the last two tracks, you’ve got a tight little package here. This and a couple of other releases have started to get me quite excited about some sort of leap forward in fullon – and not before time.