Surface 10 Surface Tensions Play Sample:   56K Dialup   Broadband   Download Sample:   500K   1.5Mb (Excerpt from track(s) 'B2 Gigacosm')

'B2 Gigacosm' starts abruptly. A dark drone contrasts ethereal choral pads. Percussive stabs strike then hang in the air. Gradually all manner of impressive contemporary rhythms start to form building up to a complex body moving groove. Some lovely violin playing juxtapositions the syncopations. From time to time there are some glitchy stutters, these are entirely intentional. Things finish just as abruptly as they started. A very impressive and highly inventive opener. 'Dawn / Bleep / Dusk' begins with a strange collage of vocal samples. Things then get all very crackly and downright weird. Amongst all the strangeness however are conventional melodies, one of the main ones on acoustic guitar which then transfers to piano. It is this rather experimental contrast between the strange and comforting, familiar and alien, that gives the track its curious appeal.

'Phantom Jack to Station MT' combines a bleepy loop with curious shuffling percussion. A rather unsettling atmosphere is created with all manner of processed vocal and synthetic sounds moving in an out of the mix giving things a feeling of constant flux, pulling the attention this way and that. It's as if walking down a deserted city street late at night. You can hear disturbing things, looking round first one way then the other trying to locate where they are coming from. '847 Chain Reactors' is another track featuring a collage of mangled samples and heavily processed sounds. Staccato percussion starts up over scrapped, almost clitchy effects. The processed vocal samples are switched on and off whenever Dean thought necessary. A very odd one indeed- but strangely compelling. 'Particle Heartbeat' is another collection of crackly / scraping sounds. To me it came close to Click and Glitch which is a style of music I simply don't understand so isn't really fair to comment on but to my surprise as this track progressed I found that it actually became quite relaxing and pleasant.

'No one was invited but Everyone Came' (loved the title!) seemed to follow on in similar mood- experimental in a relaxing sort of way but also curiously compelling. 'X Tension' (liked that title as well!) features looped twitterings. The sound source could originally have been speech but now it is pretty much unrecognisable as such. Rather acoustic sounding drums and an organ lead line strike up getting into a real cool groove. All very conventional sounding compared to the rest of the album. 'See you on the other side' returns to aural collage of sampled sounds, half heard speech and dark atmospherics. Soft metallic tones take over and things become quite tranquil. 'The Dream Shelter' is appropriately laid back and peaceful. Staccato beats just give a little structure but don't spoil the relaxed atmos. With 'Days of Lovely Statistics' things start to get decidedly odd (and very Surface 10) with someone rabbiting on doing calculations out loud. Just the sort of thing that would make all those sound explorers out there go rush and buy this album (not). Having said that when we do get past those first couple of minutes we get some lovely peaceful washes of sound. All very tranquil but with still enough going on in the pulsating detail to keep me fascinated.