- Music
- 04 Apr 01
On their debut album Stay Down, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood divided opinion like never before.
On their debut album Stay Down, Andrew Weatherall and Keith Tenniswood divided opinion like never before.
Weatherall has always been viewed as the High King of progressive, innovative and defining electronic music, but TLS are not so much 'Come Together' as divide and confuse.
Stay Down was a disorientating collection of slo-mo beats, bleeps and bloops. Tiny Reminders is more streamlined in its sonic swoosh. But not a lot.
This is not just the antithesis of 18-30 dance culture but a pulverising polar opposite of 90% of commercially available music. Occasionally, it hits a groove spliced with a (slightly) melodic hook such as the dreamy 'Death To All Culture Snitches', or the relative electro pop of 'Machine Maid'.
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Elsewhere clumsy shufflings like 'Very Futuristic' are irritating.
The jewel in the magpie's nest is easily the fabulously titled 'It's Not The Worst I've Looked... Just The Most I've Ever Cared'. It’s a perfect marriage of baffling studio boffinry and instrumental post-rock dreaminess. The final cut, 'Constant Reminder' is a compelling vortex of echoey, spaced out sound and synthesised strings swooping and sweeping as never heard before. Tiny Reminders is not the classic Weatherall has always threatened, but it still has much to recommend it.