BT - ECSM - 1997 {EAC-FLAC} [rykker]

BT - ECSM (1997)

(AllMusic Review by Ned Raggett)
Continuing pretty thoroughly in Ima's vein, ESCM is another collection of ambient-progressive electronic music with as much interest in new age blissouts as dancefloor action. This said, ESCM is stronger all around, with a more varied sense of overall rhythm dynamics than the basic build-and-release trance climaxes that were the bread and butter of Ima. Opening track "Firewater" shows this well with its initial rhythm, a shuddering, slightly distorted tribal drum stomp instead of a straight pulse. Swooping synths and ecstatic vocals mix with deep spoken-word vocals about "fire in the sky," and when the main beats kick in, it's shuffling funk that carries the track to even higher and stronger levels. Concluding with acoustic guitar and rough, soulful vocals, it makes for quite a stunning start, signaling the album's greater ambitions and success at delivering the same. While "Orbitus Teranium" sounds like it should be a tribute to the Orb, the crisp drum machine generated breakbeat punch of the track is much more BT's affair, spiked up with sudden stops, interjections, and laser sounds. As the album continues, hints of polite if active drum and bass influences and other recent beat touches crop up on other tracks even as the more familiar techno beats kick in, while quirky, abrupt synth stabs lend a slightly retro air to the proceedings as well. In that vein, the most retro and most successful track at once is "Lullaby for Gaia," with a high bassline clearly cloning Peter Hook's groundbreaking work for Joy Division and New Order. Jan Johnston's lovely, ethereal vocals, sounding a touch like a very polite Liz Fraser of the Cocteau Twins, adds the finishing touch to a perfect number. Not everything works, admittedly -- "Solar Plexus," an attempt at semi-industrial rock, has nothing on, say, Prodigy.

Tracklist

1 Firewater 8:44
2 Orbitus Teranium 8:11
3 Flaming June 8:25
4 The Road To Lostwithiel 8:35
5 Memories In A Sea Of Forgetfulness 7:40
6 Solar Plexus 4:14
7 Nectar 5:55
8 Remember 8:00
9 Love, Peace And Grease 5:21
10 Content 8:51

Year:1997
Running Time:71:36

Exact Audio Copy V1.1 from 23. June 2015

EAC extraction logfile from 13. October 2015, 21:06

BT / ESCM

Used drive  : TSSTcorpCDDVDW SU-208FB   Adapter: 1  ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache: Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction  : 6
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out  : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks  : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations   : Yes
Used interface  : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling   : Appended to previous track

Used output format  : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate   : 768 kBit/s
Quality    : High
Add ID3 tag  : No



Audio: Firewater
Format  : FLAC
Format/Info : Free Lossless Audio Codec
Duration : 8mn 45s
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate  : 905 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Sampling rate  : 44.1 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 56.7 MiB (100%)
Writing library  : libFLAC 1.3.1 (UTC 2014-11-25)