April 30- May 7, 2002
New Sound Review

CD / A Certain Ratio / Early / Soul Jazz
"Wholly inspired by the late 70s funk of the likes of Brian Eno, having taken their name from his song THE TRUE WHEEL ("Looking for a certain ratio - Someone must have left it underneath the carpet"), Northern Soul, and Funkedelic, ACR coupled Eno's production value and vocal style with a decidely more earthy approach stemming from Brazilian rhythms, Jamaican dub and American funk. The end result was an avante-garde brand of funk with a punk edge."
[read more] ---Patrick

CD / Befour Three O'Clock (Salvation Army)/ Happen Happened / Frontier
"fans of the "three o'clock's" more flowery sound who have never heard the "salvation army" material might be surprised by the "buzzcocks"-like punky speed of most of the songs here. many of the songs are influenced by the punk sound of the late '70's as well as the psychedelic sounds of the mid '60's, and pack quite an unexpected wallop. "punky psychedelia" is a fairly accurate description!!"
[read more] ---Pip

CD / various / Disco Not Disco 2 / Strut
"File under Yet Another Compilation of 80's synth/dancefloor/ proto-electro gems. While the first edition of the series veered more towards unexpected work from more established artists of the late 70's-early 80's like Yoko One and Ian Drury, Disco Not Disco 2 unearths eleven funky tracks that blur the boundary between electronic experimentation and dancefloor bliss."
[read more] ---Donny

CD / Smash TV / Electrified / Bpitch Control
"Forget the robot suits of Daft Punk: Smash TV fetishize the robotic experience into musical packets of data which Rudy Rucker's robots could discover and open up dark secrets with, as Ash opened up dark secrets by reading the Necronomicon in Evil Dead."
[read more] ---Carl