Scan X – How To Make The Unpredictable Necessary?

This is definetly one of the most dark albums i ever heard, the whole album makes me explore some areas of a city with old victorian houses, that hold spooky secrets within, or wander in nocturne atmospheres, all tracks in this album are very satisfying,"Freak Cycle" is the less interesting track, while "Chaos" turns out to be the most powerfull music for me, very deep and dynamic, also "The soul" is an outstanding track with its shadowy melody that makes me imagine flickering ghosts wandering at night in corridors of big mansions, other tracks makes me imagine having a party with Ghosts, and others will provide me different experiences, "Neurotronik" takes you on a fast dark trip, "Reflection" and "Logic" will make you get in with the afterlife, "classic" will toss you into a beautifull Baroque complex maze, and "Higher" and "War will alert you of some spooky threat that is rising to haunt someone or something...in other words this a another masterpiece from one of the Masters of Electronic music.

With seven years separating this second album from the preceding Chroma, Stephane Dri decided not to bother breaking the listener in gently, with the fragile ecosystem and deep-space orchestration of the appropriately monikered opener, "Outpost," soon giving way to his distinctive line in Detroit-themed jack tracks. Indeed, it is barely a minute into the running order before "Higher" has carved out its caustic window in the space between the speakers, using an agitated square wave to burn through a two-chord key sequence -- a hi-hat hewn from razor wire does all it can to restore order, though ultimately proves impotent in its efforts to reign in a truly fearsome groove. Herein lies the same secret that has powered so many other residents of the Motor City; whether Drexciya, Jeff Mills, or Scan X, all understand that the key comes in countering the dancefloor slam provided by an acid analog bubblebath and jack-booted percussion with a swirling of schizophrenic orchestration and developing melody. "Classic" offers the remonstration of this low-end theory, authoritative beat programming governed not so much by the effervescent bass work as the undulating orchestras that drift around the arrangement like a fog. Exceptional.

Kingsley Marshall