Flip Out Vol 5

Compiled by Space Buddha, and sounding very much like you’d expect: no foreplay, just straight into the down and dirty.

Wizzy Noise do pretty well with Origami 2007 remix, less fluffy and offensive as some of their recent stuff but still streets away from their Elektrotheater zenith. It builds nicely, but once it’s at full tilt the sheer weight of the sounds, redlined across every available frequency, is too much.

Bamboo Forest are still defiant bottom feeders, Partial Shape being an insult to low common denominators. Yes it’s well produced, and yes there’s some nice sounds in there, but do we really still respond to female samples chirping “the time is now, the world will fade” while a crap riff builds underneath? The sad fact, of course, is that we still do.

Space Buddha’s Loud & Clear is 100% Buddha material, you know what you’re getting: most of the action here is in the midrange, until a fairly tacky topend comes in for the final section. Xerox & Illumination’s The Vision (XI Remix) is a weird one: it starts out promising, then loses its way, then sort of stumbles and mumbles about not sure what it’s supposed to be doing. Kind of like their recording career, in other words.

Toast3d’s Foundation is probably my favourite one of his tracks I’ve heard: it’s got heaps of ideas, it’s interesting, it’s different, and there’s lots of changes. Unfortunately it’s still all very big-sounding, with a lot of activity up in the topend, which makes it kind of annoying. But not as annoying as Bio-Tonic’s A New Day, which has only one idea, no changes, and is boring.

Cyber Cartel’s Supersonic is massive – stupid vocal samples, big chord changes aplenty, a strong sunrise melody that’s about 80% nicked off Coldplay’s Talk. In short a very good example of a very bad style. A polished turd, if you will.

The Beat Hackers track I can’t handle, skip that one, then Protoculture’s Peakaboo gets a remix from Spinal Chord where the melody and energy of the track aren’t so much as gently coaxed and developed as forcibly rammed down your throat like an unwanted, rancid sausage.

By and large, my opinion on this is negative, but let me qualify that. This is a subgenre that refuses to die, but which I wish with all my heart would die, every night before I go to bed.

As an example of this genre, it is satisfactory.

You already knew before reading this review whether you were going to like it. I’m not even going to give this a score.