1. In The Beginning There Was HMX
2. Ligrgirl
3. Cside
4. Acieob
5. Les Misereye
6. Monocyte
7. 7venth Heaven
8. Save Your Saviour
9. Scionide
10. Mushroom Mario
11. Soulsearcher
12. Reason Why (You Never Will)
13. Centraal
14. With Respect
Octogen is another discovery for the Soma label,
and after last year's Separatists collaboration album
with Percy X, Marco Bernardi gets the
chance to strike out on his own. Soma should be
praised for their continued commitment to seeking out
new talent, which last year resulted in the elevation
of producers such as Alex Smoke and My Robot
Friend.
In choosing to listen to it after a particularly
arduous day at work, I had unwittingly picked the best
time possible for Bernardi to cast his spell. There’s
an immediate warmth about the start of this record,
with hypnotic electronic music that transports the
listener away - undoubtedly a machine based high but
with a warmth that would grace any Balearic club.
It all seems so simple on the surface, but
Bernardi's secret lies in the carefully worked
individual lines, put together in an overall texture
of glassy clarity that means every precise line and
drum beat can be heard in sharp focus. If this sounds
over-clinical the reality is the opposite, for the
string pads of tracks like Save Your Sailor and the
inward, Beloved-like vocal of the starry CSide
bring a human element.
Bernardi tends to think instrumentally however, and
his sense of musical form leads to meticulous
constructions such as ACIEOB, introducing each layer
separately until the whole, glimpsed a couple of
minutes in, brings forward a powerfully cinematic
track.
It's a long album, this, but has enough variety to
carry off without trouble, particularly as the closing
quarter picks up the tempo and sharpens up the bass.
Scionide pushes forward with an array of squiggly
motifs, and Mushroom Mario introduces a mass of bleeps
and breaks. The Reason Why (You Never Will) returns to
vocal territory, sounding a bit like Goldfrapp
fed through a musical blender.
The music of Octogen seems best filed alongside the
Vector Lovers, one of Soma's more recent
successes, but whereas the latter is more obviously
computer based this has a beating heart. There's a
warmth that will suit late summer nights, not to
mention being the perfect comedown for stressed out
office workers.