The rise of Alex Smoke was one of the most satisfying events of last year with his debut album, ‘Incommunicado’, the icing on the cake. Now it’s time for the follow-up. Difficult? No way. Effortless, more like. ‘Paradolia’ bristles with ideas bursting to get out of a fevered brain which, on the evidence of this jaw-dropping work, now deserves the much-abused term Genius. There’s no other way to describe the sheer newness and invention spilling out here. Smoke’s stark, glitchy techno vamp has come to define the term minimal and influenced many. So he’s moved on. ‘Incommunicado’ consisted of material from the previous four years, but ‘Paradlling no less than the the great Larry Heard in the way sound is used to whip up an incomparable mood of heart-squeezing emotion. This he accentuates with his singing – most effective here on the mournful ‘Never Want to See you Again’. New single ‘Meany’ is a night-stalking tippy-toe brand of spaced-out tech-house where the clanking efx are disarmingly close. ‘Snider’ recalls classic UR over leaping, disembodied funk. ‘Something’s Gone’ is a shadowy, electronic skeleton…I could go on. the whole thing’s a masterpiece and a rare furthering of the boundaries for techno. Yeah, genius.
5 Out Of 5
Reviewed By: KRIS NEEDS
