EarPIPE

AGF/Delay – Symptoms | Album Review

Monday, March 9th, 2009 | Album Review, Music | No Comments

Symptoms is the new album from AGF and Delay on the formidable BPitch Control. You may recall that AGF was the co-producer of Ellen Allien’s Sool album from last year. Here at EarPipe we raved about that album in a length post here. So expectations were high of AGF to combine her poetic talents with the sparse and diverse production skills of her husband Vladislav Delay.

Symptoms has all the similar elements that made Sool a good album. However AGF and Delay fail to make the same recipe rise in the oven. The same raw and industrial electronic sounds found on Sool buzz and whirr through out Symptoms, yet they seem to lack the coherence or direction to formulate a structure to really hit a chord with the listener. The overall experience is pretty blasé with few moments to take notice of.

That’s not to say the whole album is completely throw away. The pulsating track Most Beautiful brilliantly captures the essence of slow motion in sound as AGF repeats the simple lyrics in a softly spoken voice. Bells and drum hits fade in and out in a kind of Doppler effect to paint an illusion of time slowing down which I guess is what happens when you see the “most beautiful thing” according to the lyrics? The other track worth a mention is Connection. Another slow RnB paced number with syncopated percussion and fuzzy yet bright layers of synths create a Bjork like atmosphere.

Apart from that, unfortunately the album just doesn’t strike a chord. Which is a shame as much was expected from AGF since her effort on Ellen’s Sool.

Buy AGF/Delay – Symptoms on CD

Tracklisting:
01. Get Lost
02. Connection
03. Downtown Snow
04. Outbreak
05. Bulletproof
06. Generic
07. Congo Hearts
08. Most Beautiful
09. Symptoms
10. Smileaway
11. Second Life
12. In Cycles

Tags: AGF, BPitch Control, Delay, Ellen Allien