Play 90 second soundbite of 'Radio Hawk' @ 'CD quality'
I won't try to tell you too much about the story of 'Planet Zebidee', 'the goldilocks zone' and 'microbial organisms' here or I'll end up posting the press pack straight into this review! (If you feel the need to know more I suggest you visit Zebidee's website.)
Ok, so where do I start? Well, 'Planet Zebidee' could of so easily of ended up being a piece of total self indulgence and meaningless to anyone other than the composer. But Zebidee's better than that; Zebidee has cleverly utilised contemporary dance idioms within his electronic sculpturing and those nuances of 'garage', 'drum and bass', 'techno' and the rest help retain a 'tangible' reality that could so easily have been lost. In many cases individual tracks could be lifted from the 'concept' and used as singles in the dance 'arena'. But, essentially 'Planet Zebidee' is an unfolding story, a 'soundtrack to an alien planet'. And, in hindsight it all seems so natural to compose electronic music around science fiction doesn't it - aren't the two perfectly compatible?
Anyway, Zebidee uses his digital armoury and silicon-head nous to deliver this pretty epic and expansive work to your disc player - complete with pretty convincing sleeve notes explaining the concept as well as individual tracks, Zebidee has contrived to bring you an other world, a new place in space but he's been canny enough to devise rhyme and reason for its existence and being. So, not just a piece of modern musical composition, Zebidee is also giving you history, science and physics lessons around his other world.
I think Zebidee's whole thought process and aptitude here is quite amazing; he's made this album very real and believable when it could all so easily have been swamped or clouded by techno wizardry just for the sake of being able to. Zebidee has remained grounded and focused to bring this whole concept to you and that's no mean fete. Not surprisingly 'Planet Zebidee' is as mysterious as it is adventurous, as hypnotic as it is danceable and as vibrant as it is trance inducing - it's a very clever piece of work but it won't be for everyone out there. 'Planet Zebidee' is cultish and experimental and therefore those buying into it will presumably be similarly open-minded and independently motivated.
'Planet Zebidee' by Zebidee is an impressive piece of modern experimental music - it's cool and it's clever, it's romantic and it's inspiring - one more for the 'digital Henry's' out there but well worth a listen just to feel its presence.
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