Organik by Robert Miles

Tracks:

TSBOL
Separation
Paths
Wrong
Its All Coming Back
Pour Te Parler
Trance Shapes
Connections
Release Me
Improvisations Part 1
Improvisations Part 2
Endless

Review:

Originally the plan was to review Organic "track by track," but I soon realized that such was a narrow minded point of view. As it happens, no song on this album is truly separate from the rest.

Exept maybe for a few lulls here and there every song flows perfectly into the next and each time its a specific instrument performing the task. The violins do the job here, the guitars there and what sounds like whales or a squeaky truck handling the job between tracks seven and eight. So, every song here is as good as the last except maybe if you are one who likes having songs separated from each other. Then forget it. I on the other hand would rather pop in a cd and let it play the entire way through. A rare album, has that capability. And, this one comes very close.

Adding to this album are greats such as Nitin Sawhney with his guitar skills (featured on both nylon and electric), Marque Gilmore on his drums (on practically every other track), Bill Laswell with his wizidry, Trilok Gurtu on the tablas and many others that I sadly have not heard of before. All in all, their presence makes this an album where Roberto Concina (aka Robert Miles) shows his true colors. Having listened to Dreamland before this I have to say that this is a much more intricate and well thought out album than that ever was. With a huge number of collaborations including Nina Miranda singing on "Paths" (which I think is the best song on the album), Roberto Concina has done himself a world of good.

The album catches one by surprise. I had originally bought it to replace Mystic Groove, with no intentions so reviewing it for AV but, I ended up enjoying it so much that just I HAD to share with the rest of you. For the money (being that its been released in America, sorry to the my foreign listeners) it was simply a GREAT album. There are two songs however, that should have been left off, tracks eight and ten. Eight is simply a repeated guitar loop placed on top of a decent drum line. The song simply ruins the flow in the album. And, track ten is good like the first two times you hear it because it sounds like a resting point in a shakti concert (some of you must know who shakti is) and you listen with anxiety waiting for the music to begin again. That sort of wait belongs in a concert, not in an album where it gets boring soon 'cause after two listens, you know whats coming and exactly when so you just skip ahead.

Finally, since this album is truly uncharacteristic, I have to state the drum & base listeners stay away.