AALACHO
Sugar (Aalacho Music)
Reviewed by DJ Johnson

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Aalacho is electronica artist Nathan Scott, a very creative guy who has absorbed several of the genres of the past decade and taken the most surreal sounding qualities of each to make his own brew. And so there are some shrill synths as you might have found in vintage techno, but Scott wraps them in a soft blanket of reverb and they don't grate. There are industrial machinery sounds in the drum loops at times, but real live guitarists are playing dream-like sounds to offset it. For each element, there's a counter-element, it seems. It all plays out like a dream in a wall of sound, with the occasional vocal coming as a pleasant surprise and a brief detour in whatever mind trip you've gone on.

The sound is sometimes so thickly layered that it's apt to turn off anyone who can't handle noisy music, but I recommend hanging in there because the payoffs are well worth it. Lots of fuel for the imagination, nice production for your stereo system to play with, and a bizarre and cool version of Fleetwood Mac's "Sara" with guest vocalist Hannah Vaughan.

To me, the best thing about electronic music of the early to mid 90s was whatever elements gave it that ethereal vibe. Every sub genre had something I liked, from the deep spacial dynamics of house to the hypnotic drive of techno to the deep bass of trance and on and on. Our friend Aalacho seems to have the same tastes in electronica that I have, so of course I love this. The question is did I just describe what you love about electronica? If so, be assured that Aalacho's skills are everything you hope they'll be, and his assiduous work ethic has paid off in one of the best electronica albums you'll ever hear.

© 2003 - DJ Johnson