now, there's a couple of pretty sounding reckids. if it is mister james' work the well done - something coherent and not too showoffy or schlocky for us to enjoy; however if it ain't mr james, then can i listen to astrobotnia? it would be some spod somewhere using aphex' tonal / rhythmical palette in a slightly sickening tribute-band type way - that, though is only if you can call the rather easy-to-concoct recipe of jeff mills/ vangelis / jmjarre / joe meek / intricate rhythm programming aphex's &aphex's alone? thoughts...
― bob snoom, Monday, 16 September 2002 08:58 (twenty-one years ago) link
you could say the same about Global Goon i suppose (which, for a while, people also thought was RDJ). i haven't heard astrobotnia, but i will have when i go to braindance brockup on friday night
― gareth (gareth), Monday, 16 September 2002 09:28 (twenty-one years ago) link
The first Astrobotnia CD = loveliness. I think the sound of fireworks going off in the background giving way to crunchy beats is one of the most evocative things I've heard this year.
How does Part 3 compare... is it more of the same?
― Matt DC (Matt DC), Monday, 16 September 2002 11:24 (twenty-one years ago) link
Last time I was in any who-is-Astrobotnia discussions the general consensus (someone knows someone who knows someone who might actually know bla bla) was that 1 and 3 were Aleksi Perälä aka Ovuca and part 2 was mainly RDJ with some collaboration with AP. The part 2 evidence relies solely on the friend-of-a-friend thing, but the rest would explain the Finnish titles and "I Am Mr P" on part 3 and various other things (plus Astrobotnia is a misspelling of a place in Finland, and a misspelling that AP has used before in an interview). But this is just an internet rumour and may have been superseded in the couple of months since.
I can hear an Aphex influence, sure, but I really don't hear the slavish copying that your post and other reviews I've read suggest. There are bits which remind me of other artists as well and I can't think of anything else which sounds quite like it overall. I think there's an awful lot of stuff which sounds more obviously influenced, but then "all European idm with breakbeats or acidy noises sounds far too much like AFX" is a fairly commonly flung accusation. (I can see the point but then I am one of those sad fangirls for whom "too much like Aphex" does not really compute)
Oh, and I quite like it, but I don't absolutely love it. There are some gorgeous tracks on it, but overall I tend to find that I've had it on for the past half-hour and not really noticed it much. The fireworks track in particular sounded really beautiful on the radio before I got the album and then sounded a bit cloying and tacky once I listened in my own time.
What all this means is probably little more than that I'm a dork, I'm no good at editing posts (can't even tell how long this is, thanks to lynx, but I know it's far too long), and my attention span is far too short when it comes to listening to music. Sorry.
― Rebecca (reb), Monday, 16 September 2002 14:26 (twenty-one years ago) link
two weeks pass...
actually on further investigation astrobotnia seems to be more like what you want aphex to be doing (great swathes of vangelisy molten keys and flash gordon khachaturianisms with "contemporary" drum programming - just what is needed for those extra vehicular activity moments) as oppsed to what aphex is doing (sod all / self plagiarism / transcribing john cage's "sonatas & interludes" for dumb laptop riddims) i say yay!!! go astrobotnia!!!!
― bob snoom, Tuesday, 1 October 2002 15:13 (twenty-one years ago) link
According to the infallible AMG, Mr. Botnia is really "'a new Rephlex signing,' one Kristian Richards."
― Leee (Leee), Saturday, 5 October 2002 18:21 (twenty-one years ago) link
eleven years pass...
eight months pass...