THE WIRE

ISSUE 133 MARCH 1995

CyberHum... Elevated

( Carte Blanche 40627)

Last September ( The Wire 127 ) Tony Herrington described a Techno record

( Reflection by As One ) as " Sophoclean ". I was so impressed by this description that

bought the album, and indeed it had a chilly calm, was a clicky classic. But I would say that

Elevated is Euripidean Techno, as Euripides was a warmer, more tender playwright than Sophocles.

Except that Euripides was torn to pieces by dogs in 407 BC, and I hope that doesn't happen to

Erick Montgomery, the man behind CyberHum.

The album starts out fast and dense, an express train of bustling snares and randomised melodies.

I share CyberHum's fondness for cobwebby old synth weeps and bleeps festooning the music. Some

tracks have nifty basslines, and harmonically things are pleasantly ambiguous.A woman's voice repeats

" I'll hum it " ( CyberHum it ? ) , and the tuneful fragments scribble of the surface. the hi-hats are coated

in chocolate rather than dipped in Acid, and the organ sounds come wrapped in fun fur.

It's warm, it's chunky, and if Euripides were around today he'd love it.

The second half stretches out to explore a couple of other avenues. " Out For The Count "

brings in a brass section for a disorienting Techno-funk ballad . " Glimpse " gets back to the snapy bass

and busy interweaving lines, and " The Well " is appropriatlely dark and dank, finishing of the album

with flying fragments of metal in an industrial zone. Sounds like a welders disco.

CLIVE BELL