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Review by Bill Binkelman Conceived as a side project to his drifting ambient work, Formbank is another musical incarnation of multi-talented artist Pete Kelly and represents the antithesis of the floating darkly-tinted spacemusic of Igneous Flame and Formaria (of which Kelly is one third of a trio). In this persona, Kelly performs all manner of rhythmic, even aggressively so, electronica, EM, and nu ambient music. In doing so, he cuts a wide swath across many subgenres, in much the same way that artists like Current (Robert Solheim), Circular (a duo), and Magic Sound Fabric (Cameron Akhunaton) do on their respective recordings. Like Circular (but unlike the other two) Kelly concentrates on crafting short bursts of EM energy (the longest track on this album is 4:18). I found this refreshing as some nu ambient, in particular (such as releases on the Waveform label) can overstay their welcome. That will never be the case here, as some selections clock in at under three minutes! More than a few songs on Formbank 2 reminded me of a retro style of EM popularized by Synergy (Larry Fast) although Fast tended to craft much longer (in duration) compositions. Kelly's instrumentation sounds quite similar to Fast more than once. You'll probably also hear echoes of Jean Michel Jarre. There aren't a lot of nods to Berlin school, but every now and then a shadow of that subgenre pokes its head out. There are also tracks that have techno elements (such as the opening "Peachy" or the way cool "Mandarin" with its bursting-at-the-seams energizing laser pulses) and some pieces smash subgenres together, so you get a blend of dub with retro European EM on "Kiliman-jaro." While Kelly never really quiets down much, some cuts are less frenetic than others, such as the slinky ""Maa-ruh," the short (1:25) closing "Bella" which plays like a slowed-down version of Ben Swire's glitch tracks on Equilibrium, the sultry nu ambient/cyber-lounge/chill-out of "Multiband" or the eerie blend of spacemusic and slow tempo beats on "Kjim." When evaluated as a whole (there are a total of seventeen tracks on the CD), it's evenly divided between retro sounds and genres and more contemporary ones, which is actually a huge testament to Kelly's considerable skills as composer and performer, not to mention his studio wizardry (this is a fantastic sounding CD, too, with top notch engineering and production). If rhythmic EM is your thing, and you're not constrained to just one subgenre or type of music but prefer an assortment (all well-performed and accessible), Formbank 2 is a damn fine recording. It certainly deserves to stand alongside recent efforts from the artists named earlier. The fact that Kelly is an equally gifted drifting ambient sound sculptor makes the quality of this release even more revelatory. Is Pete Kelly the next renaissance man of electronic music? It's sure beginning to sound that way to me. |
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