Strata Frames

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An album that has been receiving copious amounts of praise in the year 2002 is 'Gradations' by Electric Birds. However, Mike Martinez' U-Cover release from the year before, 'Strata Frames', seems to have been oddly neglected. Perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that U-Cover, a very new Belgian label, releases its records in such small editions (955 in this case).

Either way, this neglect needs to be rectified, for fans of 'Gradations' should take the deftly crafted 'Strata Frames' to their hearts will equal enthusiasm. More than an hour of glitchy ambient, not of the juddery, nervous sort, but rather glitches with rounded-off edges, a softly propulsive journey into the stratosphere.

There is a subtlty and sheer compositional weight to this record that the present reviewer finds lacking in the works of many of the artists in this genre, who seem to shy away from actual 'development' in their creations. Comparable perhaps to Pole without the overt dub sensibility.