Chiglaik

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My initial response to Adam Johnson's Chiglaik album was yet another pleasantly laid back album from m3rck. The opening Eno/ Orb like statements of, "Changer demain," really make this evident. However repeated listenings make the finer aspects of Adam's music more apparent. A prolific tech-house DJ he's taken the complexity of beamed cuts ripped from minimal sonorities in Berlin or Cologne's metropolitan sound and given them the good times feel of stoned washes of reverb-ed chill-room era rave-lore. It's a combination that's at odds, at once a throw back to the pre-aphex days before acid crews were throwing breaks so jumbled your feet didn't have a chance to catch up with your neurons, and a pitch into the present world of techy clean cuts instilled with a fine sense of groove although Adam's boom and drums aren't products of minute micro-tonal clusters, but only carry the feel of Berlin's finest. While at times this could be a broadcast of NPR's Echoes the production values exceed the lazier remains of those days and Adam's time spent focusing on all that reverb gives the whole package solidity. Ambient music has come to mean self-indulgent and frequently boring music to me, but albums like Chigliak let ya know room can be made for infrequent equals to the Mixmaster Morris crown.