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(Entropy / Vitamin)
Full of clicks, blips, shimmers and swells you could be forgiven for forgetting that Entropic’s ‘Factory Seconds’ is the product of live band. Set up more like an amplified jazz quartet, the Sydney’s band’s release takes their instrumentation far beyond the expected. Light years from anything the title might suggest, ‘Factory Seconds’ is a mesmerising instrumental album that ebbs and flows between ambient soundscapes, and recognisably deep house and d’n’b grooves.
From the long elegant ambient build up of ‘Trading Heroes’ to the suspenseful and driving epilogue this band takes bass, drums, Rhodes, guitar and listener on an intriguing journey. With progressive arrangements full of twists, suspense and revelations, Entropic are anything but repetitive. Each song is like a living organism, slowly mutating as the beat rolls on. The mentioned closing track ‘Greenwater Down’ is an absolute monster, weighing in at sixteen minutes and thirty seconds… with never a dull moment therein. Punctuated by a percussive guitar line, the song peaks after about twelve minutes and stands forth as the perfect example of the band’s ability to use dynamics and arrangement to their maximum potential.
This is a jazz album by format, and it reads beautifully as a complete work. With only seven tracks on the album, each song finds its feet gradually, at a variety of paces- from the sudden strut of ‘Boltzmann’s Theme’ to the ‘Pace of Peace’. The latter is built with percussive layers before entering a shuffling lilt with the rest of the band. Suddenly drums are playing light d’n’b while you catch yourself humming along with the guitar’s new-found melody. Two tracks feature additional spice by way horns and strings, with an isolated vocal track managing to find it’s place within the instrumental continuum.
Suggestive introductions, intense climaxes and beautiful resolves are peppered throughout the forty-eight minute album, which by design holds form with cutting edge jazz albums of the sixties. Simple typography sits over an image of cardboard human silhouettes, in keeping with the ambiguous nature of the music, and ‘film noir’ musical and textural allusions. If you’re looking for something sensitive, intelligent, intensely emotive and always accessible, this is your ticket. Having honed their skills through two prior releases, the Entropic boys’ ‘Factory Seconds’ is anything but disposable.
