Mini Review: Antenne - #1

Artist: Antenne
Album: #1
Year: 2000
Rating: 5/5

(Written in May 2008?)

Some people really don't know what they're missing. #1 is quite possibly one of the best albums ever, quite likely to be discovered by critics 20 years after and called the "Dark Side of the Moon" of the 21st century. The album begins with a strong intro called "Here To Go", featuring brushed-drum beats and superb female vocals in a combination that might be a jazzy soundtrack for space colonies... Unlike other critics think, I don't think "Here To Go" is the only great song on #1. Somewhat closer to traditional trip-hop, "Like Rain" is opened by vocals that are looped to create the suggestion of rain, being continued with lo-fi beats and great lyrics. Crossfading with the previous track, "Let Me Ride It" is an instrumental 6-minute respiro, a really beautiful ambient piece that has some slow beats only in the second half of it. Closer to the first two tracks, "Whispering" is a gentle, melancholic elegy that establishes the heavy-on-echos/loops sound that dominates on #2. Crossfading with the previous song too, the oddly-titled "PPG Hold Prg. 11" is an eerie instrumental dominated by large portions of silence and very slow but heavy beats. "Moving Slow" is a very underrated track, which can be fully enjoyed only in ataractic or ill moments - as this is what the song is all about. Another gem of the album, "Something Not To Do" would have been a pop song if everything wasn't so dark. The beats, which don't begin immediately, are distorted towards the end, so it's likely not to be everyone's cup of tea. In the end, "Memo" features some interesting synths that are repeated quite often, maybe to suggest the idea from the title. Towards the end, the synths are heavily distorted until being drowned into a subtle wall of wet noise, before the album ends in complete silence. Maybe it doesn't sound really great at first listen and maybe not everyone can enjoy this album; after all, it's a pretty dark album that's more suitable for winter solitude moments... But, in the end, after listening to it, I can't say that it isn't a masterpiece. It is and it's the best soundtrack I had last winter.