List | V/A | 'CatCompilation' CD 1994

'From Control-Alt-Delete'

Track:	Name:	Artist:	Time:
1.	Seek 200 1.0	Information Society	2:26
2.	Rhythm Machine	Jay Gillian / T42	3:52
3.	Industrial Wasteland	Anything Box	3:39
4.	Nerve	Racket Club	3:45
5.	She Has Everything	Channel 69	4:16
6.	Come To Me, Ecstacy	Red Red Groovy	5:02
7.	Mask	NR 17	4:09
8.	Under Static Islands	Tension Envelope	5:02
9.	Believe In You	Total Devotion	3:46
10.	On My Way	Information Society	3:56
11.	The Last Good Day	90 Degrees	2:46
12.	Conscience Of A King	Picasso's Children	5:06
13.	Color In The Rain	Machine In Motion	3:48
14.	Checkers Goban Mix	Division Of Beat	3:54
15.	Fade	Dissonance	3:55
16.	1994	Denoument	4:34
17.	Aftermode	Reaction Void	2:16
18.	In The Scene Of The Mind	Violet Arcana	6:18
	Total		72:30

Comments:

This album is sort of a compilation of demos and such; some are pretty professional, whereas others are not. It says 'Promotional copy, not for sale' on the cover, and it can only be obtained by contacting Control-Alt-Delete.

So what does it sound like? Well, rather varied. It's pretty interesting to hear some of Information Society's demos, for instance. Not necessarily as excellent as the finished stuff, but interesting. Track 2 is pretty good as well; it sound a bit like an old Anne Clark song, but with a more modern feel. A good one, with lots of synthetic voices (three kinds of speech synthesis). Track 3 is really annoying. The title implies some sort of 'industrial' sound, but what comes out of the speakers is even smoother than the usual ABox sound; some sort of happy, blippy synth pop with doomsday lyrics. I can't take this seriously. No way.

As for track 4, I can only say that it sounds a bit like some old Yello stuff. Interesting, but not really too excellent. I suppose this is a demo. Track 5 is a pretty standard American synth pop tune. It's ok, but not more. Track 6? I guess it's supposed to be some sort of trancey dance beat. They'll learn. Track 7 sounds like rock'n'roll to me; that sort of commercial, pompous, not too noisy rock. Still, it's pretty good for that genre.

Quirky. That's the first word that comes to mind when I try to describe track 8. It's very quirky. Lots of strange sounds. Pretty monotonus. Track 9 also pretty monotonous, but in another sense: lacking a good melody. This may not be so bad for other kinds of music (like track 8), but in this case it just gets boring. After that we have some InSoc again - never heard this one before. Judging by the amount of samples, this could very well be an out-take from Hack.

Track 11 is a bit of a surprise: it's not very synthetic (or at least not very obviously so). It's very good; depressive, dark, calm - all that wonderful 'feel' that German synth pop bands usually have and most American don't. Track 12? Not much to say, really. It's ok. As for track 13: it annoys me a lot. Too darn much nonsense! Track 14 starts off with a nice sort of acid-like bassline, but then it just gets too repetative. Just a drumbeat and a voice sample. Since it's a remix, I suppose there's more singing in the original version. Track 15 is a lot more interesting; deep bass, heavy drumbeat and a sort of smooth/sharp female voice. Almost a bit EBM-ish. Pretty good. I like it.

Track 16 is full of sharp super-synthetic sounds; I like these a LOT :-) The voice seems to be sampled from some sort of political speech, with some occasional disted rap. Very interesting track indeed. A bit long, though. It's followed by - you guessed it: track 17. A bit dark, noisy & twisted. Rather interesting. Lacks a good catch, perhaps. It's based on a vocal sample from 'Alien 3'; not the most original idea, but it works OK here.

And, last but absolutely by no means whatsoever least, track 18. Simply put: it's excellent. By far the best track on this entire album. A worthy song to end the album. Soft, dreamy, dark... I think I'll buy more stuff by this band.

Home