10/06/08
Text: Nik Mercer
Minimal―a genre forever attached to the nightclub first and the living room (if ever) second―is a style that's easy to fake and incredibly difficult to convincingly pull off. (Part of the reason why the stuff isn't played on home stereos and in cars is because a lot of it is atmospheric, pure sound engineering for a crowd of ravers high on e.)
Essex-born, Berlin-dwelling Lee Jones has been pumping out some grade A minimal (and bizarre nu-jazz using the alias Hefner) for years under a slew of names and with a handful of collaborators... and for the most part, it's been some pretty intense stuff. We were excited to find out about the release of his new LP, Electronic Frank (out now on Aus Music), on the merits of his previous work, but we weren't necessarily prepared for the strangely serene beauty of the record.
Aside from a few songs, namely the final track, "MDMAzing" (hah!), the album is pretty low-key, relying on a subtle tension between off-kilter beats, quirky electronic melodies, and whiffs of down-tempo that are unusual finds in anything normally dubbed as "techno." Check out the third song, "Soon," in the media player to the right to get an example of the unassuming depth of Electronic Frank. If we've one problem with the fourteen-track work, it's that some of the cuts feel flat and bare in comparison to both Jones' superior past works and standout singles on the new LP itself. Regardless of its artiness (if it could be honestly called that), Electronic Frank still innately feels like a dance album for clubs and energetic crowds, so to tone it down to such an extreme is a bit of a stretch for us.
