SPACEDRUMS
self-titled (Pyram-Axis Records)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Ten years ago this kind of music really turned people on; now, not so much, at least outside the circles where it originated. Like other underground movements, electronic music began raw and challenging, then by the dual hands of overproduction and marketing became stale and ordinary. Think Hip-Hop, think Punk Rock only faster. What could have been a new digital revolution - a generation of fledgling Bachs and Gershwins slumped over turntables instead of pianos were co-opted and systematically gentrified into oblivion.

I'd like to say that Spacedrums doesn't fit into that generality, but it does. In spite of its winning the Best Trance Artist at the Los Angeles Music awards, it is the poster child for just such an ugly degradation. Cover songs like "Set the Controls (For the Center of the Sun)" and "Scarboro Faire" are mere novelties, the rest really mired in an old techno mythology of chanteuses singing lines like "feeling the mind" and "seeing the light." In fact the signature song "Spike Up" is essentially nothing but those lines layered over a recycled beat. If Trance and Ambient music be your muse, beware, the effects of Spacedrums might have you scrambling for better days, days long gone by and perhaps the unhinging influence of the chemicals that made them such.

© 2004 - Erick Mertz