KONE ON DADDY'S FARM ALBUM THE RECORD COMPANY RELEASE: AUGUST, 2008 REVIEW: SEPTEMBER 3, 2008

This year will be remembered as the year the age of artist direct access came into its own and in the vanguard of this we find no one other than Mr. Phil Western leading the charge.

Via his own Record Company he has issued a staggering amount of material between 2007 and now. There has been his return to the solo fray with "4am" and "1221". He has dug into the vaults, putting out a double album of unreleased, unheard sonic experiments entitled "Dat Hell." He further emphasized and underlined the point with a double CD re-issuing of Floatpoint's long out of print masterpiece "Beam Error". Add to all of this he's undertaken a collaboration with Mark Spybey under the name of "Beehatch". With this in mind, he has now released his second (!) record under the name of Kone.

Kone's debut "Cirrhotic Psychotic" was a mean-spirited and nasty affair of bruising beats, wirey synthesis; it generally set it sights on the modicum of popular electronic music and then proceeded to annihilate it while jettisoning us across the stars into a cosmically epic meltdown. "On Daddy's Farm" continues in this tradition but returns us to Earth, for, you see, where this farm is located is right on the edge of the continental shelf. Diving into aquamarine waters of an unknown, alien microcosm you find yourself immersed and literally drenched by the plethora of organic intent as songs with titles like "Hello Fuckface" induce a vicious undertow. You're now entering Daddy's Farm, enjoy your visit. If analogue misanthropy or say aural alchemic sedition are your forte, Kone's latest may as well be a shot of pure adrenaline to the bloodstream.

If it doesn't kill your perceptions outright, if you've the constitution to endure it's siren's song of technological duplicity "On Daddy's Farm" is going to show you things, it's going to take you places and once you're there it's going to give you a few glimpses over the edge of that shelf, into the dank inky abyss which only a sheer drop off can contain. This album is a rollercoaster ride with twists and vertigo-inducing plunges which a track like "Analoggy" unleash very effectively, the beats and sounds interplay off of one another giving up a luminous contrasting effect that endures long after you've proceeded onto the next marine epoch fittingly entitled "Sick Dick (You Don't Want That Guy)", the effects processing floors me, how is it that music like this is made in 2008 and so few are paying enough attention to catch it.

Believe me, esoteric electronica/techno is alive and well. Kicking and screaming, wailing away until the small hours of the morning, this is what it is to be down on the farm.

PETER MARKS