Electronic music -- or to be more accurate, the range of styles that will appeal to self-described electronic music fans -- is a stretched and swollen genre. However, despite ongoing efforts to drag more and more artists and styles beneath the aegis of electronica, there's precious little innovation going on. Under those circumstances, Becoming Transparent stands out even more.
You might be familiar with the FEQ from File Under Futurism, last year's collaboration with DJ Spooky. Freed from DJ Spooky's somewhat drab urban palette, they're free to truly shine. Their approach, which adds traditional acoustic -- often classical -- instrumentation to drum 'n' bass and downtempo hip hop rhythmic constructs, is almost jaw-droppingly lush and beautiful. After hearing a few hundred drum and bass tunes in which limp, insincere soul harmonies are fused to assembly-line beat patterns, hearing a real cello juxtaposed with a wildly original percussion track is almost revelatory.
It's a subtle orchestral approach that begins with the lush and languid "Transparent", which brings together an ornately sullen wash of strings and keyboards, then enlivens it with a bristling, pinging percussion track seemingly culled from modem handshakes. And "Transparent" is just the tip of the iceberg. "So Fragile" adds dreamy female vocals to this mix and drops beats that are equal parts mechanical and organic. The striking "Downtime is Becoming Less of an Option" throws out a blurred, unpredictably frenetic drum pattern, using it as a carrier current for a blur of melodic user information. A variety of sounds and stimuli, delivered at breakneck pace, ape the chaotic flow of contemporary infoculture. It's danceable, but more as an instinctive physical response than through any booty-shaking urge.
By comparison, the downtempo "Ping" drags itself to an exhausted, cacophonous collapse. "Multiple Truths" twists its way through a constantly reversing funk groove reminiscent of classic Cabaret Voltaire, ultimately paying off in a minute of gorgeous melody. "Vindication" adds further layers of detail, and a proportionately greater intellectual payload, to the Aphex Twin/µ-ziq drill-n-bass style, while cleaving away much of its clinical anonymity. And "Duplicity", the disc's final act, is a beautiful excursion to indecision, moving at once in every direction and none, heavy with mournful strings and an indelible mechanical melancholy that manifests itself in massive, bass-heavy sobs.
I must hasten to add that I'm not describing high points here; every one of Becoming Transparent's thirteen tunes offers bountiful payoffs. I've barely scratched the surface.
Equally satisfying is Becoming Transparent's philosophical payoff -- hinted at in song titles. In the digital world, we are all becoming transparent within the communication process, and with this change comes a loss of secrecy, of property, of individuality and identity. If I'm interpreting this correctly, FEQ see this as a world where the quality of our connections -- in a hardware, software or wetware context -- is more important than the quality of what we're connecting to; you and your modem are judged by your handshake. It's a life in which art and culture are data, and conversations and relationships are network traffic, and we can't see the forest for the directory trees.
This is not merely electronic music -- saying so almost insults it. By rights, Becoming Transparent should become one of the first truly significant, forward-looking works of the twenty-first century...inasmuch as twenty-first century culture is capable of sustaining any enduring artefacts.
