Culture

Rating: 3.5/5

Michael Paradinas, most commonly known as μ-Ziq (pronounced “music”), is an English electronic musician. Though an influential figure in IDM (Intelligent Dance Music) over the last 20 years, he has never received quite the attention or acclaim of his contemporaries, such as Squarepusher, Autechre or Aphex Twin.

Some would call this unjust; with perhaps the exception of Autechre, μ-Ziq has been more active in recent years than any of his peers, releasing albums under numerous pseudonyms and running his own eclectic label, Planet Mu. Others would draw a direct parallel between μ-Ziq’s prolificacy and his lack of a magnum opus; while a group like Boards Of Canada emerge from their cave once every few years with a fresh masterpiece, μ-Ziq simply spreads himself too thinly over too many projects, never focusing his efforts long enough to produce one truly extraordinary work.

Chewed Corners is Paradinas’ eighth studio album under the name μ-Ziq. As with every new μ-Ziq album, Chewed Corners arrives with the task of being his overdue masterpiece. Furthermore, it comes at a fertile time for electronic music: 2013 has already seen acclaimed releases from close relatives Autechre and Boards Of Canada and distant cousins Daft Punk and The Knife. In short, the bar has been set very high. As I anticipated, Chewed Corners doesn’t quite deliver. It doesn’t rank among 2013’s best electronic albums, nor is it μ-Ziq’s masterpiece.

As disappointing as this was, this doesn’t stop Chewed Corners from being a solid album. To its credit, it bares little resemblance to any other music being made today. “Taikon” is perfect as an opening track: tinny percussion and a haunting keyboard melody twitch against a queasy wall of bass, recalling horror soundtracks of the late 80s and early 90s. A synthetic choir fades in and out of the latter half of the track; though in isolation this would sound angelic, in Chewed Corners’ soundworld the result is chilling. Across the album, sounds are placed in an unfamiliar context and their nature inverted, such as the dancefloor pulse in “Christ Dust” or the house piano in “Houzz 10.” What would otherwise ring rich and optimistic here sounds bleak, empty and pixelated.

So why doesn’t Chewed Corners compare to an album like Tri Repetae, or even Exai? It certainly has a sound as coherent as either of those albums, though I can’t help but feel this is the result of μ-Ziq drawing from a limited sonic palette rather than honing in on a particular idea. You also have to be incredibly tactful to do retro well (as Daft Punk did earlier this year with Random Access Memories), and Chewed Corners’ backward-looking philosophy takes away from its overall effect. Though it does occasionally nod towards more recent veins of electronic music, much of Chewed Corners sounds suspiciously akin to the skeletal IDM μ-Ziq and co. were cooking up two decades ago.

Though this album is certainly worth your time, I was left wishing Chewed Corners were better than it is. On reflection I should have lowered my expectations and I would have enjoyed it more as a result, yet I held out for a masterpiece all the same. We all know μ-Ziq has it in him. It may take him shelving a couple of his pet projects, but one day he’ll concentrate his talents and come out with one.

One day.