My Robot Friend
It's a nice complaint, but too often I get drowned in new music. This deluge means that sometimes, the best releases pass me by, or just sit on a shelf for a few months before I finally get to listen to them. I was meaning to listen to Bochum Welt's latest album for ages but had put off doing so because I didn't know a lot about his previous releases and, seeing as it is released on Planet Mu, lazily assumed that it would be based on the razor-sharp breaks sound or murderous dubstep bass style that Paradinas's label does with such brilliance (that's not a valid justification for not listening to it - let's just put it down to slackness). Of course, this was a glaring mistake: 'Robotic Operating Buddy' or 'ROB' for short, is cut from a different cloth to most of Mu's output. Spanning two discs and a ridiculous 31 tracks - so much for electronic producers having a problem with the album format - the album is subtle, rich and warm-sounding, ostensibly a product of too much time spent listening to Warp's early 90s catalogue and the spine-tinglingly self-conscious melodies of Italo, as heard through I-F's ears. It would be unfair to call 'ROB' a home listening album because there are some, admittedly laid back, 808 drum workouts, but it all fits into a cohesive flow, and does so with so much panache that it makes Welt a contender for album of the year.
Edit: As Skkatter has pointed out, ROB was released on Rephlex, not Mu, which kind of makes my assumptions erroneous. However, it still does not excuse my slackness or take away from the fact that it's an excellent piece of work...
