Slowdeck

If Fritz Lang were still alive and doing straight-to-video work, he might choose Slowdeck to score his films. Not that Slowdeck executes at a B-level, but there is something cinematically subterranean about this sound. Even the LP's title, Multiple Offenses, invokes visions of desperate thugs escaping down chiaroscuro alleyways, trench coats billowing. Multiple Offenses is a dense fog of ambience: Echoes and crackling vocal samples surround the creepy spaces, which are filled with drum and bass, string chirps, woodwinds, and jabbing piano, as if inspired by (or aping) John Cage. Some tracks nod off into filler -- a lost frequency and static cast as the lead on the track "Radio Bristol" -- but tension builds and characters come out of the shadows on the moody "Time Rolls Backwards." Slowdeck would be easy to shelve between Schematix and Tricky in the trip-hop/ambient/electronica bin, but Multiple Offenses longs to be the soundtrack to a story, real or scripted.

George Hurrell

Pet Shop Boys

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