Plant43: Burning Decay
Ai Records

Burning Decay, Emile Facey's Plant43 follow-up to 2007's Grey Sky Cracks (Ai Records) and 2009's Elephant Road (Semantica Records), features six new tracks of high-grade electro filled with razor-sharp drum programming, iridescent analogue synth melodies, and epic melodic patterns. Poised to follow in the footsteps of a great grandfather who played clarinet in the Royal Philharmonic and the London Symphony Orchestra in the early- to mid-1900s, Facey found his study of classical music and training in clarinet and piano sidelined the first time he heard Kraftwerk's “Tour de France” in 1984. It's certainly possible to hear the group's influence in Facey's own tightly constructed tracks (“The Silver Finger” especially, which is undergirded by a classic Kraftwerk-styled beat pattern), assembled with gear such as drum machines and synthesizers, but it might be more accurate to think of the material as an inspired incarnation of IDM. Certainly the tracks are rooted in dance genres—the sleek stealth of Detroit techno shadows much of the EP's material—but they're also much more than simply groove-based exercises. Multi-layered tracks such as “Gravitational Collapse,” “Tidal Locking,” and “Andronicus” are grandiose and symphonic in design, with chiming keyboard melodies forming interlocking weaves while crisp, percolating beats lay down rock-solid foundations underneath. The title track takes the style to an even higher level when its reverberant washes are so epic, the setting begins to evoke the synthetic universes associated with Vangelis and Klaus Schulze. Burning Decay is music of such broad electronic appeal one could easily foresee it appealing to fans of Model 500, Drexciya, Solvent, Dopplereffekt, and Carl Craig, among others.

September 2010