After two previous albums, Solar Drums, released on AP Records in 2004, and Rockable, released on Tribal Vision in 2005, Meller now returns in 2009 with Spacewalk on Crotus Records. One might think: from Tribal Vision to Crotus Records? Well, it’s actually the best place for them, I think, since Meller has never been making music to fit into specific boundaries. In this album they cling more to a kind of minimal sounding technoish style. You can love them or hate them, but they’re definitely busy with their own thing. Anyway, as I said this album doesn’t really fit into a specific category. The best description for this is progressive mixed with minimal techno influences. There’s lots of vocal samples, and overall a pretty mysterious feel in most of the tracks. It takes some getting used to, but when you get used to it, it’s pretty good stuff. I especially like the core of the album with Robot Monsters (T5), Spacedrum (T6) and Shiba (T7), which for me best convey that mysterious feeling I mentioned. That Was (T9) deserves a mention for those crispy C64 8-bit sounds that keep popping up, and Jumping Jack rounds the whole thing off nicely with a more melodic approach again. There are no real downers here in my opinion, and the whole thing deserves to be listened from start to finish. It sounds like they worked quite some time on this to work it to perfection, and the results are good. There’s already a Neelix remix of Dirty Buddy out there, so the remixes have begun as well. What more is there to tell? The mastering sounds great, crisp, clean and everything in the right place. The cover artwork is nice and colourful, a lot like the artwork of the Solar Drums release. |
