Best of Year 2019
Knowing what we do about ToC and what is inferred by the title of their new record, Age of Aquarius unsurprisingly begins in the same submerged realm as Drexciya and certainly passes through Translluison's cerebral gate. But just when you think you’ve this mob pegged as mere James Stinson acolytes (tbh there’s much worse things to be), repeated listens reveals a pretty formidable statement all its own. There's a seriousness to Tribe of Colin that makes a mockery of their name and tells the main story of this record - they're not fucking around here. They take their techno very seriously, and when I say techno I don't mean the kind you hear on luxury yachts off the Croatian peninsula. Creator God. Eye of Ra. Paradise Lost. This is weighty, often claustrophobic material spiritually aligned with Detroit's paranoid futurism that does what techno does best and conjures mental images of dead cityscapes in the dystopian night. You know the kind of thing. And the Self/Distance into Paradise Lost one-two is as good as I've heard in a while, the former's razor-like cut and thrust giving way to the latters dubby computer world. Immersive stuff. Sounds nothing like it, but I'm declaring it 'this year's Rezzett'. Yknow, new stuff that could be old it's so good. And the packaging is immense.
