SampleScience- PlastikDisc

ARTIST: SampleScience

ALBUM: PlastikDisc

LABEL: Brown Coffee Recordings

REVIEWER: Matthew J.

DATE: 3-1-09

Proving that minimalist electronic music doesn't have to be cold or harsh, producer Pierre Parenteau, otherwise known as SampleScience, offers up 15 tracks of minimal but pleasant electronic experimentation. Though most of his compositions tend toward vintage analog sounds, he uses enough organic-sounding instrument patches to keep things from getting too drab or monotone. "Bamboo" is based around a clicking rhythm that sounds like real wooden sticks, for example, and the mellow breakbeat of "Read Between the Lines" features what sounds like an actual bass guitar. "Algonizer" even goes so far as to add a stony electric guitar loop to its mellow beats and blips. While some of Parenteau's compositions, like the house-flavored "Casio Rapman Goes Minimal," by and large his works tend toward the more soothing side of ambient in the vein of early Aphex Twin. "Ambientissimo" is a particularly good offering. With its quiet drum machine groove and thick sleepy synthesizers, it's like a lullaby gone breakbeat. "Magic Spell Pounder" is another good one, with vaguely psychedelic beats and analog tweaks that are somehow both intimate and otherworldly. "Analog and Oldschool," on the other hand, is perhaps a little too understated, making for decent background music but otherwise pretty unremarkable. Still, tracks can be solid without being challenging, and based on his statements in the liner notes, that seems exactly what Parenteau was going for with this release, and it's a good reminder that ambient electronic music doesn't have to be overly complicated or intellectual; it can just be nice to listen to.

For more information about this release, visit the Brown Coffee Recordings website at https://www.geocities.com/browncoffeerec.