Jonteknik – Sounds From The Electronic Garden
This is both good and bad. Lets get the bad out of the way first. Influences are one thing but wholesale plunder is something else. This record takes too many of its cues from Moby and Kraftwerk particularly. I like those artists too but if I need to hear their stuff that’s what I play…..their stuff. I don’t see any great need to replicate to quite this much extent. This has gone beyond homage and pastiche into ridiculous areas of copyism.
I’m afraid this happens quite a lot. The album opens by moving across the face of Moby waters and then hits its Kraftwerk straps as early as ‘Time’. (The Man Machine and Computer World get revisited on more than one occasion each). The similarity is both blatant and competent . When you think about it, you’d have to be pretty bloody good to approximate Kraftwerk to any degree. Here we flip over to the plus side because the album itself is of a very decent standard. It’s varied, despite the rip-offs and it is playable and fun. Where guest singer Lebole pops up the effect is not dissimilar to Saint Etienne, a kitch, europop that is somehow sexy because of its sterility rather than in spite of it. ‘Hollow’ is a particular triumph with its fun melody. This time vocals are provided by the brilliant Blue- Jean Muir. More please! Oh and the closing track ‘Kubrick’, I love it.
Jonteknik has worked with Claudia Brucken (Propaganda) and Paul Humphreys, both groundbreaking electronic artists. Sad then to admit that he, himself is no pioneer, merely a fan. A massive MASSIVE Kraftwerk fan to be precise! Then again, what’s wrong with that? I’m one too and if you’re of similar persuasion then Sounds From The Electronic Garden is likely to be reasonably agreeable. I will certainly go back to this record.