Record Label Records Fluorescent Grey : Gaseous Opal Orbs (US,2008)****°
Robert Martin with his project Fluorescent Grey shows a good taste for music with use of electronica and sounds, with influences ranging from the first wave/experimental pop generation (Coil, Zoviet France,…) over Nurse With Wound’s play with sounds to the newest examples of playing with rhythms and sampling (Venetian Snares, Aphex Twin,…) to the more complex and more spatial electro, all leave their mark in some way or another. From the new electro scenes I only very shortly followed some outstanding examples I could discover from the scenes, especially those who also combined this with acoustic sounds, vocals or theatrical ideas into the mix, or enough spatial feeling with something “real” happening I was forced to limit my scope out of practical reasons but with this release, I am consciously thrown back in into the New World of possibilities. And FG shows a really convincing musical concept with lots of variety. Partly, Robert Martin composes like a DJ with ambient soundscapes and electronically processed rhythms, on some parts, not too different from some other new artists, and equally good, and fluently driven, but these are some of the calmest, most modest, still intelligent variations. The compositions with sounds mostly are even more spatial, use interesting sounds, and I guess a few acoustic performances are used too, which are ripped, wrapped and smashed into a new form of music.
Track 1 sounds like such a spatial performance as if played by 7 people in a room, using sampled and found sounds, a track which adds varied complex rhythmic electronic machinery. The second track plays with all kinds of ethnic-acoustic percussion instruments, hanging cleverly together like 'electro jungle', a remixed percussive world. On the third track, Robert shows even better how good he can work with electronic rhythms and sounds and with complexity, working with breathing and beautiful sounds, which sounds very natural, like a living entity, expressing some aspect somewhere in the world. Electronic music like this, about only 20 years ago, would have taken months to organise, slide, cut, paste, stretch and so on, on huge equipment, while today this is within reach of any creative person with enough invested ambition and talent. This mixes into a next part, of dub electronica, as if played with a whole band but done by digital modelling only. The track after this is again one of these clever acoustic remixes. This sounds as if based upon an already clever performance of experimental glass, cup and spoons-on-tables percussion, and is mixed with electronica and voice. Later on also some sort of flute performance is adapted into it as well. After more electronic, rhythmical pleasures, the 7th track is a clever remix of Celtic folk with sort of Baroque arrangements. Last couple of tracks are a few more variations of composed, played and remixed sections with electronic equipment, of which the last purely technically achieved part shows a beautiful complex stereophonic experience, a perfect ending.
The band’s earliest recording was 'Please Do Not Buy This Recording' (Cassette), also on Record Label Records (1996). He has already released many cd’s of which one series was called the 'Look What I Cooked' CD series. Besides CDs he also released one MP3-EP called 'Asian Woman Mummy In My Tummy'.
Secret Saucer : Tri-Angle Waves (US,2009)***°
