A reggae team of Noel Gallaghers have been sent from a dub/electronica future and have called themselves Analogue Wave. The electronica outfit’s début album ‘N.L.G.W.V.’ is a mesh of smooth slow drums, heavily after-effected vocals and synths. Strings and sax flow over the industrial instrumentals and overall most of the world’s population are pleased.
Both Andy Sneyd and Del Chaney, the duo behind Analogue Wave, have managed to amalgamate the pop-vocal/synth-instrumental stylings of Pendulum but, judging by the slow pace of the album, decided to take a relaxing bath halfway through and never got around to adding in the ferocious drums.
Tracks such Blame, Shine and Even Still are pretty much perfect bath-time tunes. That is not to say that that each has some kind of cleaning properties, rather its to say that each track makes you feel as if you have been lost in a plume of steam as you sink into warm frothy water. It’s immersive bath-time music.
I Hold Dear moves the reasonably familiar vocals into the background, making them more a part of the instrumentation than centre piece of the song. Orchestral harmonies and a exotic style drum play the song off and gives the otherwise flat lyrics a feeling of mysticism.
The album continues to run like a well oiled machine and eventually crashes the listener into Fingers the album’s single. It breaks the ‘bath time feeling’ and hits them with a riff so distorted it would have you splashing around reaching for a pair of shoes to dance in. A Prodigy-style drum backing rushes the song quickly along and, despite its heavily synthesised outro, it keeps all of the primal tribe music vibe of the rest of the track preceding it.
No sooner then having gotten out are we then plunged back into the album’s relaxed vibe, with a reggae cracker whose chorus literally sounds like it was recorded underwater. Narco Dub, the album’s final track, is robot-reggae throughout. Like much of the album however the vocal melody, while well suited at times doesn’t hold up against the satisfying ‘rasta music for beginners’ sound of the instrumentation.
Were they to put the same reggae beat behind Shine, possibly the album’s best song, its simple catchy chorus and deep,deep bass would have been perfectly suited for the ‘dread-locked’ community to smoke to.
In its entirety ‘N.L.G.W.V.’, is an album worth a good listen. The clean faultless production of the album alone merits it a few relaxed listens. Mixed into the staple slow drums are nuggets of musical gold; strings, sax and synth all appear and disappear seamlessly and are all worth keeping an ear out for.