Redshape – Square

Label: Running Back
Catalog#: RBCD05
Source: German Promo CD
Release date: 5 November, 2012
Format: MP3
Quality: 320 kbps
Size: 129 mb
Genre: Electronic
Style: Techno, Electro, Broken Beats, Ambient

Tracklist:
01 The Channel (2:07)
02 It’s In Rain (6:01)
03 Atlantic (4:31)
04 Orange Clouds (1:57)
05 Moods & Mice (6:24)
06 Starsoup (7:42)
07 Paper (4:58)
08 Landing (3:04)
09 Enter The Volt (4:59)
10 Until We Burn (5:57)
11 Departing (1:44)
12 The Playground (Square Version) (8:29)

“Square” is the follow up to Redshape’s album debut “The Dance Paradox” (Delsin, 2009) – that is if you don’t want to count the double impact 12-inch “Red Pack” as a long player. And indeed, it is a long player in the truest sense of the term. Pamphlets, theories and opinions about the dubious role of “the album” in techno are dime a dozen, i.e. squaring the circle, but the man with the mask makes an effort to prove all of them wrong. “Square” doesn’t care for styles, genres or expectations, it can hold its own.

Spread across twelve tracks you are as likely to meet vintage Redshape on tracks like “It’s In The Rain” or “The Playground (Square Version)” as you will encounter new facets of him with the Hyperdub affiliated Space Ape featuring “Until We Burn” and “Moods And Mice” or with a cluster of ambience pieces (“Orange Clouds”, “Landing”, Departing”). Working its way through all these states and moments on and off the dance floor, through melancholy and industrial romanticism alike, “Square” leaves you with the feeling of having experienced an electronic music album with identity that trusts in itself and wants you to trust in it.

No matter if your perspective comes from a classic album like Kenny Larkin’s “Metaphor” (R&S, 1995) or is informed by the recent retro futuristic developments in the United Kingdom, if techno means more than a desperately compressed kick drum to you, Redshape with all his idiosyncrasy finds his way into your heart.