ICARUS I TWEET THE BIRDY ELECTRIC ALBUM LEAF RELEASE: MAY 24, 2004 REVIEW: JUNE 18, 2004

You might not be familiar with Icarus, but this is their fifth album – and also one of their best. Having generated a large underground following through their tours as both part of The Misfits and through the duo’s own live improvisations, it is easy to see that these are not just home computer programmers, but highly talented (if eccentric) musicians.
"I Tweet the Birdy Electric" can best be described as a left-field improvisational electronic music album – full of wayward structures, key changes, stuttering and spluttering sounds, and the odd out-of-tune twanged guitar here and there. Don’t mistakenly think that this means it is all a bit messy though, because when you listen to such tracks as "Essen", with its main piano-style core interspersed with electronic swooshing and backward leads you not only hear, but you feel. "Birdz Max" is a particular favourite, giving a particularly melancholy take on the splutter beats used by such artists as Squarepusher.
The album is filled with very unusual effects, sounds, noises and even more indescribable things, but they all combine to create an atmosphere that keeps you listening. Many of the tracks here ("Three False Starts", "Frogmatik" and "Birdz Max") are so filled to the brim that they create huge tapestries of sound; it is easy to listen to these tracks again and again and though the "feel" of the track you remember, the sounds, when you listen again, may be completely different to what you picked up on before.
This album goes a long way to capturing their live sound, without flattening too much the possibilities their sets bring. Although it might not be one for listening to all the way through in one sitting, it will be one worth dipping into from time to time, and there is enough quality here to suggest you just might do that.

MIKE WHYTE