Arctic Spaceman - "MONOLITH"

http://arcticspaceman.bandcamp.com/album/monolith

When I first opened up "MONOLITH" I was incredibly excited for more chippy goodness, as I giddily pressed the play button. What I did not expect was the chipstep, a genre I've only recently ventured into. It takes a lot for dubstep to impress me, for example using a style that isn't every other dubstep song. I have to say, you really took the trophy with this one, Arctic Spaceman. Does it have that dirty modulated bass? Yes, but does it use it in the same way that every dubstep song does? No, in fact it's quite beautiful. By the second song I was in love with the album, I'm really excited to review this.

So lets do it, shall we? Starting with "Dunno", Arctic manages to take a sort of new wave-y sound that I just adore, and mixes a modulated bassline without that overused half speed breakdown, allowing the song to keep it's mood all the way through while we're introduced with "I am Arctic Spaceman." Compared to the majority of the songs on the album, it's a bit short, but to be honest that makes me feel like rather than a track for the sake of a track, it's an introduction. This is a song designed to introduce you to what the album is, and who you're listening to, and what to prepare for. It's a really pretty song, and it's rather minimal, which I find to be a nice quality. It works really well for this. "Internet Hate Machine" starts off with a soft game-y sounding intro (I know it's chiptune, but even for that it sounds likes something from an indie soundtrack) while a siren-esque bass creeps it. The percussion hits, and a modulated bass jumps in sounding  more like a scratch dj gone terribly right than it does a dial-up connection being drop-kicked out of 7th story window and the following bounces. I like it. The song picks back up with the indie game sound from the intro, and then keeps into the scratchstep section. The entire song sounds like it could fit well for fight music, and I don't think I'd really mind that at all. Oh, by the way, I'm in love with that piano interlude. Just... absolutely enamored. Towards the end it starts sounding like a well designed house song with a grimy bassline, a sound I can't imagine most people not enjoying.

Now for "ADVENTURE!!!", that's a promising title. I feel like I've stepped into a new wave song that stepped through a game boy and a vocoder with a disco beat. I'm really loving everything going on in this song as it jumps into a basshunter seeming sound gone 8bit. It's nice and fun, danceable, and it's still pretty minimal. You don't really have to think to much to understand the different segments of the song, more than anything you can feel them. A nice thing about this song is the way the patterns work. No pattern feels like it drags on too long, once one's worked through it's either layered, glitched, or removed until later. I feel like I'd play this in my living room, maybe ten or fifteen people, everyone knows each other, and we'd just dance. It's nice, fun, and fitting. I've yet to listen to a song on this album I don't like, and I've yet to feel like one was too short or too long. "Acid Bitch" starts off reminding me of the Prodigy, I'm not sure why, it just does. It moves instead into a more rave-y feel, like something you could put over the intro rave scene in Blade and say "well... I don't think it doesn't necessarily fit." It definitely is pretty acid-y, while keeping that chippy squareness of the oscillator. It's rave-t, it's definitely dance-y, and at 3 minutes in it becomes fantastic. I'm loving it more halfway through than at the beginning, but just as well I feel like it got their in a nice amount of time to set the rave-y feel. It's pretty drone-y which is something I definitely want in a song sometimes. A nice overlay of another square-y keyboard note stab style jumps on top, and gives in a nice feel. Oh man, this is my favorite song so far.

With a name like "Horror" I have some high expectations of a darker sound, perhaps more dark house than the "Acid Bitch"'s rave-y appeal. Definitely an eerie feel to the song, it's pretty, I love all of the pitch jumps. It's a bit glitchier than the previous songs, it's kind of fun. There's a R.L. Stine seeming bass that steps in there, and then the whole song fades out. Halfway in, it changes pretty slowly. The heartbeat bass in the back is kind of messing with me in the best of ways as the electrohouse dark feel from before comes back in, this is beautiful. I think I would listen to this as night started falling while I was on a road trip with just one person. That's what I think, at least. I love how this song is feeling. Oh gosh, the glitchy bit around the four minute mark is a nice little section I wasn't expecting, definitely one of my favorites of the album, it's really hard for me to make a decision of a singular favorite though. They're pretty fantastic, though and all slightly different. So far a great album. "Swedish Von Guetta" has a nice sound. A really fun sound, like if Crash Bandicoot decided it wanted a more clubby vibe. It's pretty fun, and that sudden arpeggio and bell sound offer a lot to the table. The Rugrats-esque vocal noise made me kinda chuckle, but just as well it made a nice sound with the song. It's a really fun song, very dance-y, very uptempo, I like it. The arpeggio keeps coming back with it's square-y goodness to make the song that one feel better. It's a pretty song, I could see it on a catwalk, or maybe a vodka commercial or something of the sort.

That's my two cents on the first half of the album, and I leave it to you guys to put in the rest. It's a really fun album, a really dance-y album, and definitely a pretty album. At first I was expecting it to be mostly chipstep, but I'm glad that it wasn't. Not out of spite of ability, but simply because Arctic Spaceman has some serious skill regardless of the genre he's playing with. I would suggest this to anybody that enjoys clubbing in their living room, or even in a much larger room with real speakers or something. This album is beautiful.