orators your tv loves you too (cdr from yuffie's sub quest)
i used to be really against techno music. actually it started with me being against electronic music altogether, and then only into the "drill'n'bass" stuff like the richard d james album by aphex twin, lunatic harness by µ-ziq, all the squarepusher stuff. then as i went backwards into the aphex twin discography i got into that stuff as well, but i still had a thing against the term 'techno' (result of someone attempting to classify my noise as 'ambient techno' when i tried to describe it to them. bastard). so when andy kisaragi of orators fame described his music as techno, i cringed. but i gave it a shot (dark future) and it turned out to be not too bad. and then straight lines was even better. which brings me to the subject of this review, pardon my rambling on there. this album has a much tighter sound than previous, the beats sound very nice and always 'work' within the track, melodies intertwine and interplay.. it opens with 'more silence' a nice energetic track with stuttery flanged drums pushing everything along, a get up and move kind of track, even for a generally stationary person like me (i don't dance for fear of someone secretly video taping me, but i have to do something). after that is 'cubanoid', a more subdued track with gentle melody and a bit of humming. 'fortune III' is a track that wouldn't sound out of place on a video game (modern one, not 8bit) or maybe a soundtrack, it has a very purposeful sound, like things are getting done while it plays.  following that one is the somewhat misleadingly titled 'goodnight. i miss you', which doesn't sound as moody as the title would suggest, kind of thoughtful i guess.. anyway.. 'johnny smokes crack' and 'hairslide' are both more energetic again, both having stuttery drum rolls and somewhat agressive beats, the former with a bit of delay to give it a bit of depth and the latter with a more driving melody line. 'hairslide' drops it's beats and the melody feeds back into itself and disappears leaving 'rain', an atmospheric piece with just the sound of rain, typing and some fuzzy layered weather reports (surrealistically enough the typing is actually him chatting with me, according to mr kisaragi). the weather reports drop off until it's just the typing and the rain, and then the main melody for the next track ('laura is leaving') begins playing over it, a nice rather melancholic track. next is 'oxygen', an aggressive track with angry-sounding flanged vocals, apparently about a bad relationship from the lyrics. the vocals fade away and the melody drops off, and 'destination' starts with the same beat, pretty much straight ahead trance, probably the weakest of the tracks here for it's strict adherence to the trance "sound".  next track is 'ideas', another sort of upbeat, soudtrack-y purposeful song, followed finally by 'hard to say', a thoughtful track that seems to again be about a relationship from the lyrics (yes there's singing). there's one bit where his voice breaks a little as he sings the word "goodbye", it's perfect. i hope things keep getting better from the orators, i really enjoyed this record.