Head On

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"It's the future of music!" That's what I shouted, anyway, when I first heard this pioneering album from Super_Collider, aka James Lidell and Christian Vogel (he of Busca Invisibles). I shouted it again when hearing them live at The End (London nightclub) at the weekend. With one of 'em sounding like Prince and looking like the bastard child of Elvis while singing James Brown like p-funk over the other's distended, distorted basslines and uncompromising techno-electro-experimentalist noiseniks, Super_Collider manage to shake butts yet still tug at the old synapses while they're at it. Darn (Cold Way O' Lovin') was released at the end of last Summer. It's the first track to head for if you've never heard any Super_Collider before. Especially as the opener Cut The Phone is not exactly the most accessible, with its slowed-down stretched vocals and unearthly sonics. Meanwhile, Darn... is a serious slice of caustic techno which whips straight into your soul. Jamie Lidell has a voice to die for and their dusty, scratched and scrawled-over production adds an awesome dimension to what could so easily slip over into the verge of try-too-hard experimentalism. Trackwise this album veers from the cold bleep robo-vocoder-led chunk-funk of Hide In From The Day, the eerie slo-mo funk of It Won't Be Long with its sliding synth distortion slithering across crunchy beats, through the minimal dark as fuck Under My Nose to the hip-swinging riddims of Take Me Home. In fact, there's a new discovery every time you play this album. By the time you've read this, I'll have thought of something else to say. Which is testament to the work that's gone into this record. And it's clear that Christian Vogel and Jamie Lidell have a partnership to envy. Somehow the two sides - the detached electronica shoved through by Vogel - and the soul-wrenching emotional vocals hurled at you by Jamie - meet (super colliding, we can only guess), explode and drench you in an utterly unique singeing synergie of sound.