Shulman

Random Thoughts

Aleph Zero (Israel)

Shulman’s third album is frustrating. While it shows how his sound has evolved and become more mature since his last album, there’s not enough new and interesting material to justify anything more than a casual listen. OMG is a decent opener, taking a breezily long time to form itself. Think blissed-out pads, and a beatless intro that soothes away all your stress, twitching, and your general bullshit. When the beats drop, it’s a semi-glitched affair with a laid-back approach to the sounds: there’s no desperate effort to make it all cohesively linear, no undue duress on the listener. Somehow, however, it escalates wonderfully into a kaleidoscope of chill, a real moment that reminds you how beautiful life on this planet can sometimes be.

Midnight Bloom is a collaboration with Bluetech, and the two artists’ styles go together pretty neatly. Cue Evan on the techy-tetch beats, cue Yaniv on the ethereal melodies and sublime moments. When it works, it works very well – but for my money there’s a tad too much instrumentation and trickery going on in what is otherwise a blissful, orgasmic piece of electronic music. And here come the remixes: three of them, and all released before. Shulman’s take on Sub 6 & Michelle Adamson’s Ra He’yan is good as remixes go but, seriously, the original was never really *a very good tune* and on top of that, you could buy it if you wanted to on a CD single that came out two years ago. I like what Shulman’s done here, but that’s kind of like saying that someone has made a very nice wedding cake out of elephant shit. Next up, Entheogenic’s Spaced and Omar Faruk Tekbilek & Steve Shehan’s Ya Bouy.

While both aren’t bad, and are worthy enough in their own right, their inclusion on a supposedly new artist album does feel like a bit of a con – particularly when the latter has been around for about eighteen months. New tune time, Look Honey It’s The Vitties being the most interesting track on the album. Beats morph and rise and fall all over the place, the effects are staggering, and in the middle of all this chaos is a beautiful, beautiful tune. It’s like glitch-jazz-porn and it’s simply delightful. I Drive features Lee Triffon, and we’re looking at that familiar beast: a bloody excellent tune with awful vocals over the top. For the record, this time they sound like Sinead O Connor, but not as good. I’ve said this so many times it’s getting boring even to me: I would pay double to hear a version without the singing. Finally Staring At The Abyss sounds like a Juno and a Nintendo being sucked into a black hole. Not bad in itself, but you get the impression that it’s something of an unfinished experiment; and if you want desolate ambient, then you’re going to listen to Tangerine Dream anyway.

Random Thoughts certainly lives up to its title. There’s sparse resemblance to 2003’s cohesive, joyous In Search Of A Meaningful Moment, and it’s even a step back from Soundscapes and Modern Tales, which at least had a compelling fusion of organic and electronic sounds. At the end of the day this is something that should really be targeted at completists; there are far more accomplished – and dare I say, better – chill albums around than this.

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