Eat Static - "In The Nude" (Mesmobeat CD5)
Eat Static - "In The Nude" (Mesmobeat CD5)
From Aural Innovations #15 (April 2001)
Well, the new Eat Static CD is upon us. The band is following up on it's great Crash And Burn CD, which showed the band really expanding it's style a lot, while leaving the dark trance techno behind. As most of you know the band is made up of Joie and Merv from the Ozric Tentacles, as well as Steve Everitt. In addition, Steffi Sharpstrings from Here and Now/GONG plays guitar on 4 of the tracks. If you were expecting spaced out trance techno like the Bony Incus or CD singles from the Science of the GODS CD, then I think you may be disappointed. If you are interested in hearing how the band is expanding its version of strange dance music, then give it a listen, you will be surprised. The first track Salon Hitty, features a real Latin jazz piano piece in the middle of beats that are very much like latino music. Strange mix... somehow it works ok. Epidemic and Monstro (tracks 2 & 4) are the most techno of any of the tracks on the CD. Monstro starts off with a whisper by Merv's girlfriend Trixxie and then the techno beats come in. Pretty average song and not really interesting until the last two minutes when a strange synth layer is added. Our Man In Nirvana is one of the stand out tracks. It actually features real drums (I am quite sure) at the beginning and some ripping cool lead guitar that is highly distorted and mixed with wah wah. The track starts as a very 60's style garage song and transforms into a 70's funky disco style and finally a spacey synth sound enters and they go into the jazz synth solo. Very cool number. In The Nude is the first number under 7 minutes on the CD and is pretty ambient. Byronic is very funky with cool layers of synth and weird samples. It also has a very mutated bass line. Much more spaced out and the closest of any track to sounding like old Eat Static. Temponaut, again is quite funky. They really seem to have listened to a lot of funk in the past year as it is all over the CD. Again, a very cool song that moves through many stages. Moonbeat is quite spaced out with a kind of Middle Eastern singing that is totally distorted and Steffi also plays some cool guitar. I think the band should experiment with more live drums as a track like this one would be great with real drums. Mandrake and Critical Mass end the 74 minute CD. I think this CD will surprise a lot of people and it is certainly more mainstream on the outside, but once you get inside it with a few listens you discover the strange wierdness that is EAT STATIC.
Reviewed by Scott Heller