ICARUS
Six Soviet Misfits (Temporary Residence Ltd.)
Reviewed by Erick Mertz

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Call it twisted. Call it silly and derivative. Call it a scatterbrained stew pot of wiseacre loops and precisions. Whatever your chosen definition may be - real or irrelevant - Ollie Brown and San Britton of Icarus call it Six Soviet Misfits.

An album like Six Soviet Misfits wanders all over the board. There are moments featuring the hauntingly spare and others come running through the speakers with a futzy, jangly energy somewhere off of Exit Planet Dust from the Chemical Brothers. Disk Two's "Nine Fresian" is ethereal and wan, as thoughtful and pensive as categorically hedonistic electronic music dares to be, while on the other side is a jazzy, sugar spun number "Benevolent Incubator." Unlike a lot of similar fare, Icarus is good without seeming to take what they're doing too terribly seriously.

Over the two disks which comprise Six Soviet Misfits there is a buffet of tastes, nothing dabbling in the too daring yet, nothing of the rigid textbook ordinary. This little number tends to get noisy in spells - be forewarned. It fractures and falls off the bone in hunks, but stick with it. Icarus doesn't break the mold, they settle into the groove and allow their needle to hold steady.

[Pick this up at www.temporaryresidence.com.]

© 2003 - Erick Mertz