MILES MACMILLAN

Alienated

self-released (2003)

review by Bill Binkelman

I love this album! It's another in what appears to be a trend of "retro" synthesizer music that harkens back to the days when the last thing artists wanted was for their synths to sound like "real" instruments. As such, the tones, notes, beats and rhythms sound overtly synthesized (or, in the case of beats, programmed), which is A-OK in my book. Right away on the first track, "In The Wake Of The Comet," you'll hear scratch breakbeats circa synth pop from the '80s. As I wrote above, I love this stuff!

MacMillan's real flair lies with how effortless this music flows from the speakers (or headphones - and what a treat this one is on 'phones) and how much fun he is obviously having playing it. The assorted keyboards and beats are infectious as hell - this would make great driving music (ambient it isn't, except in the broadest sense). This CD is a stone blast to listen to. I can't put it any better than that.

Besides the excellent music, the graphic look of the CD is very good too and I like the SF storyline in the liner notes, as well. But it's the tunes that made me hit "repeat" many times. Check out the spacemusic washes that open "Irreversible Fall Into An Abyss Of Obscurity" eventually morphing the piece into a driving EM number full of pounding tom-toms, kinetic beats, and cosmic keyboards. "The Light" starts off sounding like an instrumental version of Howard Jones' "No One Is To Blame " what with its percolating synth beats and liquid smooth keyboards. "Waves of Delusion" is anything but dark, as one would assume from the title. It's bouncy and happy and even a tad cheesy, but in a really good way.

I don't know as I would call this EM, in a Berlin school way, although it does echo Tangerine Dream from the '80s in a few spots. I think it's closer in spirit to the pioneers of electronic instrumental music, albeit coming at it from a structured "pop" composition style. You might flash on Tomita, Carlos, or even Jarre at times, or, like me, you'll recollect Euro-synth bands of the '80s, sans the lyrics and with greatly improved engineering and sound (MacMillan has utmost taste in his keyboards, beats and drum programming).

The centerpoint of the album is the sixth (of seven tracks), "Day of Reckoning" which clocks in at almost eleven minutes (everything else here is around four minutes long). Unlike the rest of the songs, this one goes through several distinct "moods" opening in a flurry of laser zap synths and pulsing drum pads and cruising through quieter more drifting passages as well as propulsive Jarre-like sections before ending in a minimal vein that compares favorably to what the late Dan Hartman did on New Green Clear Blue (minimal echoed somber Fender Rhodes-like keyboards).

I highly recommend Alienated to those who love electronic music that is designed to be listened to, not played as ambient "wallpaper." While this CD could be enjoyed as such, you'll miss most of the fun. A fondness for drum programming and "synthy" synths will help, too. On headphones, it's almost guaranteed to put a grin on your face because this music is a lot of fun to listen to - not grim and overbearing like so much ambient music is these days. Alienated represents what is frequently missing from electronic music, i.e. pop music's sense of the importance of making the songs inviting and likable. These are qualities that this album has in vast quantities. Highly recommended.