Geometry

This cd is quite frankly one of my all-time favorites, It hasn't gotten far from my cd player in months. Jega really comes into his own in this album. The production value is just outstanding, quite an improvement from the slightly raw Spectrum. The range of frequencies you'll hear on this album go from the lowest bass imaginable to the highest gentle tones. The rhythms are probably the best thing about it. You won't hear beats like this on some house record, and melodies and general musical value are not lacking either. The really fascinating thing about it is the theme. It really *does* give you a feeling of geometry, and the names of the songs seem very apt at times. Recursion really does recurse. Inertia picks up steam.When I started looking through some of the other reviews here, I was surprised to see that some people cited the title track, Geometry, as a standout track. I think it's decent, but possibly my least favorite on the record (either that one or Binary Space). When people cite a variety of tracks as being the best, it is often indicative of the overal quality of the album, and this is no exception.IMO, the BEST tracks are (1)Alternating Bit, (3)Recursion, (7)Breakpoint Envelope, and (11)Post Mid Arc ... Breakpoint Envelope in particular is amazing. The landscape of sounds is incredibly diverse, but what really makes this song so unbelievable (yes unbelievable) is the mood it creates. It's dark and sinister and gives you a dirty kind of feeling that is very tough to describe adequately in words. And like many songs on the album it develops as it goes, building climax upon climax.Provided you have an open mind, I really can't recommend this album enough. I'll tell anyone who'll listen to buy this album and keep playing it until they like it.

Here's a brief history of Planet Mu, which is very much relevant to Jega. Planet Mu was born in 1995, and was originally setup as a sublabel of Virgin Records, on which it initially planned on releasing music by µ-Ziq (Mike Paradinas), and similar artists. The experimental electronic genre that initially was vultured upon by the major labels never took off in the United States, and Virgin gave up spending their marketing dollars on this back-shelf product. In 1998, Paradinas decided to take on the label single-handedly, and, prefixing the releases with ZIQ, released Jega's Type Xer0 as the very first 12-inch. This teaser was followed up with Jega's debut album, Spectrum (Planet Mu, 1998), and from that the rest is history. Prior to his signing on Planet Mu, the man behind the Jega moniker, Dylan Nathan, has already released material on none other than Skam Records. There, with his two EPs, Phlax (Skam, 1996) and Card Hore (Skam, 1997), Nathan fit along perfectly with such contemporary abstract and experimental IDM artists as Bola, Lego Feet, Freeform, Boards of Canada, and of course Gescom. On Spectrum, Nathan rips through melodic breakbeats with newly perfected IDM elements, fitting right at home with Paradinas' µ-Ziq style. Glitched out percussion draws influences from Aphex Twin and even some leftfield downtempo beats ala Amon Tobin, whose first release, Bricolage, came out a year prior on Ninja Tune . Two years later, and a few EPs in between, Nathan releases his sophomore album, Geometry (planet Mu, 2000). This album is much different in tone, and immediately made its impression on me. A lot darker, machine-like chopped up percussion, jitters its way through the cold corridors of sonic spectrum towards the experimental Autechre sound. Although a few atmospheric melodies remain throughout the album, the deep electro beats and metallic effects hold their solid ground. Geometry is definitely among my list of influential albums. In 2004, Jega showed up with a Theme From 1998 on Planet Mu's compilation, Children of Mu. Another track, Aerodynamic, appeared on the label's compilation, Sacred Symbols Of Mu, two years later, in 2006. In 2003, as Nathan was working on his third album, Variance, a copy leaked out onto the sharing networks, and Nathan had to scrap and rework almost all of the tracks. The album is definitely still in the works, and Paradinas mentioned that Variance Vol 1 and Vol 2 will be released as a double album sometime in July, 2009 (!!!). As a matter of fact, Jega showcased his upcoming work during his exclusive set on BBC Radio 1 Experimental on March 11th, 2009 (do your own digging on the planet-mu.com forums to grab a recording). I hope that bit of news got your juices flowing, as I'm sure I'll be reviewing the album once I get my dirty hands on it.

I hate rating albums, cause I find it hard to narrow down my feelings of an album to a particular number... I usually review albums that I like, and so if they're good enough for me to review them they usually get a 5... that doesn't necessarily meen it's a perfect album, but just that I really really like them, and that overall it does something for me... but anyways, on with the review...that is the case with this album, it's not perfect, but probably pretty close... I really really like it... it has beautiful melodies, cool percussion work, strange and errie sounds all throughout, and it sounds good all together... straight through, it's very good... I like the way some of the songs start out seemingly as a bunch of random noises all over the place, and then it all falls together and the song comes into focus... some of the songs have excellent grooves, like Recursion for example... beneath the noise lies a great rhythem, and out of it comes a cool little melody... I'm not totally familiar with all the track names right off, cause I only bought this today, but already I love it... it sounds very metallic, and even sounds like old school electronica, but with a modern flavor... my favorites right off are Tracks 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 13... but the other ones are good as well... if you're interested in electronic music, or more specifically the so called IDM genre (stupid name), then definately check this out...