VA: Morrow Choral Orchestra
Designed Disorder

The Designed Disorder follows its Autonomous Addicts compilation with a perhaps even better one, the oddly-named Morrow Choral Orchestra which counts a front-line crew of electronic alchemists amongst its players, including Machine Drum, edit, Richard Devine, Deru, Mr. Projectile, Logreybeam, and Eight Frozen Modules, all of whom drop exclusive tracks.

In vitro label head Deework gets things moving with some sweetly sliced'n'diced arcade-inflected hip-hop (“Signs Reorder”) before Machinedrum's funkily loping “GCel” gets spattered by a bass undertow and eventually swallowed by a cacophonous noon-time traffic jam. On “Plug,” dD label partner Anon embeds her strangulated voice rivulets within a slippery funk groove while Mr. Projectile drapes waves of galaxial synth shimmer over trademark slippery breaks in “Rapture.” Richard Devine's humongous “Kek-P2” machinery writhes with as much pulverizing determination as we've come to expect from the Schematic scientist, and clouds of smeared synth blisters detonate over double-time electro locomotion in Ben Milstein's “Neglnvfac W/ Logreybeam.”

The collection moves into quieter, emotive territory during its final third. Deru's atmospheric, vocodered interpretation of Yasume's “Rengoku” and RD's equally dreamy “Ribbon” lend the comp an attractive downtempo dimension, while Eight Frozen Modules confounds expectations with a lovely piano-synth setting of sparkling placidity (“Hello Harold”). Partnered with Ginormous, Deru returns under the name Sympathy Belated for an entrancing excursion of haunted voices and spectral ambiance (“Get Well”). With its processed string plucks, the closing “Le Perdita Della Notte” finds Logreybeam (with Linkophi) echoing Marsen Jules' shuddering style. What considerably boosts the hour-long disc's appeal is its electro-hip-hip and beat crunch emphasis over conventional IDM, plus its gradual shift from aggressive beatsmithing to downtempo atmospheres.

October 2006