BT
Movement in Still Life
Nettwerk America
BT, aka Brian Transeau, has been a very significant figure in the development of what is called “Progressive House” or “Progressive Trance,” popularized by such DJs as Paul Oakenfold, Sasha and Digweed, Taylor, etc. With this new album, Movement in Still Life, BT finds himself taking a different direction and approach to electronic music – almost abandoning the sound he became famous for – instead opting for the sound of new school breaks, hip-hop, and even alternative (?) music!
The CD starts out with “Madskillz(Mic Chekka) – a very funky, acidic, new-school breaks song with fairly effective hip-hop style vocals, courtesy of West Coast MC Rascoe. The next song, “Never Gonna Come Back Down,” is comprised of a prefabricated breakbeat, some distorted guitars, and BT trying to sing and then a laughable attempt at rapping, and is really not akin to his skills. Other attempts at doing rock driven music on the album – “Shame,” “Satellite,” and “Running Down the Way Up”, really fail miserably (remember Moby’s Animal Rights?).
This album isn’t a total loss yet, though – tracks like “Movement in Still Life,” a very hip-hop influenced electro-breaks track, and “Smartbomb” breathe a new life into things, and of course there are a couple of great signature progressive trance anthems – namely “Dreaming” and “Godspeed,” which really shift the balance of power back over on the good side, although I’d give this one a pre-listen before I purchased.
Nettwerk America, 8730 Wilshire Blvd, Beverly Hills, CA 90211
Nettwerk Records, 632 Broadway, Suite 301, New York, NY 10012; http://www.nettwerk.com
