Tin.RP - StarVing (Hun_ger v2.6b) flac album

TIN.RP are under no illusions that they are ever going to be stars - neither in the mainstream arena, nor in the Counter Culture underground. They are clearly doing what they want to do, irrespective of the reaction they get. They do not try to 'fit in' with easily pigeon-holed styles, favouring instead the dabble around until you get a pleasing result approach. And, surprisingly, it's by doing this that they not only establish themselves as having a sound which is as unique as it's possible to have in the field of electronic experimentation - where every corner has been delved into - where torches have shone into the darkest recesses - but actually open themselves up to a wider appreciative audience. There's an attraction to virginal, unsullied thinking, a pleasing feeling of safety that these folks are probably so wrapped up in their own private universe that they could never harm you in the 'real' one. The sound is a mixture of raw circuit board electronics and the occasional rhythmic structure. It's kinda rough and ready (in that there are few obviously clichéd effects or enhancements) which again adds to it's charm. When it does form into rare moments of rhythmic structure, it feels as if they dredged deep within their own ideas, rather than adopting and adapting ideas like many artists out there. There are deep, indistinct rhythms; DOCTOR WHO fx and the sounds of raw, burnt electronics which would be simply unacceptable, even in the self-deluded-into-feeling-open-minded culture of today. Sometimes it moves towards Noise, but never tries to make you jump out of your skin. There's even a somewhat Avant Garde approach to composition - as if this is what STOCKHAUSEN might have played were it not for a classical education. This is certainly evident on the collaborative pieces which draw the album towards it's conclusion. I grew up in the Sixties and Seventies with cheesie Sci Fi, and simply loved those sounds - BBC RADIOPHONIC's dabblings at stacatto punctuations and other-worldly weirdness; "Forbidden Planet" and other such classics. This is why I love electronic music - not lush reproductions of strings from preset keyboards, or music-by-numbers attempts to reconstruct ponderous paradiddling or agitated Drum 'n' Bass edginess, but a dehumanised production of what the future might hold, what other worlds might be like - descriptions in sound rather than words. Originally reviewed for Metamorphic Journeyman.