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SecondaryCell
SecondaryCell

Antarctica Records

Posted: Wednesday, July 23, 2008
By: Matthew Johnson
Assistant Editor

IDM composers can generally be lumped into two broad categories: those, like Aphex Twin's Richard D. James, that push at the boundaries of taste and convention, challenging listeners to keep up, and those who care less about intellectualism and confrontation than simply creating a pleasant and meditative listening experience. SecondaryCell definitely falls into the latter camp. Apart from the crunchy clatter of beats and bleeps on "Vacuum Tube," the project's self-titled debut album is melodic and mellow almost to a fault, evoking a wonderful sense of calm with rich synthesizers washes and extended ambient phrases built on a foundation of warm bass and simple rhythmic structures. Though things occasionally move past "chill" into outright "cold," there's still an appealingly naturalistic vibe in effect; the echoing whistles and sustained tones of "Montreal Overnight" are the cold of a northern winter, not the depths of space, and despite the extraterrestrial themes hinted by "The Jovian Moons," the thick bass line is as warm and comforting as an electric blanket, making Io and Ganymede seem more like good spots for a long nap than most astronomers would have you believe. "Treewoman of the Delta," perhaps the album's highlight, moves into moodier territory with darker keyboard phrases amidst its subdued breakbeats, though higher-pitched arpeggios eventually return things to the calm prettiness that pervades the rest of the album, and "Close to Our Dreams" is brassy and cheerful without being obnoxious, its thick metallic synths creating a sense of hopefulness that's not so ebullient as to wreck the tranquility of the rest of the album. While SecondaryCell's work lacks the glitch-laden intensity currently in vogue with much of the IDM community, there's definitely something to be said for the easy pleasure of a head-nodding breakbeat and a soothing melody.