#442 Bassnectar - Mesmerizing the Ultra

I've been listening to that Feed Me album a lot, and can't seem to find anything else that scratches the same itch (including other albums by the same guy). Three different people though, when asked about something similar, pointed me to Bassnectar. In this modernday manysphere, that's a goddamn ironclad consensus my friends.

I can see the point of comparison. Bassnectar trucks in highly textured buzz, is unafraid of maximalism and riffage, and generally blends more traditional house and trance with proto-dubstep dabbles. For the first half of the album it's fresh enough, as different variations on the basic deep-bass-thrum-plus-beats waft through. The most exciting moments are those with rappers over top, especially on the Prefuse/Mouse on Mars-chopped Blue State Riddm (but not counting either of the two tracks with Sunru Skywaka, which end up sounding like Prodigy B-sides).

The whole thing, too often, falls too far on the trancy side of things though, bound by repetition, seemingly not wanting to draw too much attention to itself. Plus, the whole thing vastly overstays its welcome. By the time Interpret rolls around we've been listening for an hour, with 3 tracks to go, and things have gotten really repetitive, sounding more like Orbital soundscapes than anything worth really moving to.

And I guess repetition and long runtimes are fine if you're looking for chill-out music, but I'm not. This is my whole problem, modern techno pariahs Justice and Feed Me both dared to adopt rock notions of excitement, riffs, and pacing, which I love, but which aren't really in line with the genre's actual tendencies. This album lays down its basic loops and then satisfies itself with throwing variations over top, I want actual full-bodied, whole-hearted changes, even if it means interrupting thoughtless rhythmic swaying. There's some interesting stuff here, but the deep bass doesn't agree with my chillout needs, and nothing outside the rap-laden tracks really pumps my blood for me. The quest continues 3/5

You might like this if: you want something mostly mellow, fairly adventurous, but ultimately repetitive to listen to and feel like you want to hear bass go bbbwwwwWWWOOOOOAAAAAAAAAaabbb a thousand or so times