SOMATIC RESPONSES
TOUCHING THE VOID
ALBUM HYMEN RELEASE: JUNE, 2002 REVIEW: JULY 19, 2002

I must admit I always liked the undanceable “post-rave experimental” electronica, much reviled by hardcore tech-heads and dance music journalist Simon Reynolds. This terrible elitist music for art students who don’t have the balls to do a lot of E’s and dance all night used to keep me very happy. I liked the weirdness and the obsessive qualities of Photek cutting up his beats with surgical precision, The Future Sound of London sampling twisted urban nightmares and Squarepusher warping drum’n’bass into utter strangeness.
Sadly many of the artists inhabiting these fringes - even Photek - took Reynolds point, that electronic
music equals dance music, and turned to house and soul, quickly evaporating into the blandness of some vocal driven dance music.
I shouldn’t complain though. There is plenty of challenging electronica beneath the surface. Hymen is an affiliated label of Ant-Zen, one of the most interesting sources of sound in later years. Their trademarks are great artwork and packaging as well as music that is often as disturbing as it is beautiful.
Somatic Responses is no exception. Brothers John and Paul Healy explore the abandoned ground of multi layered, industrial drum’n’bass on this, their third full length album on Hymen. Complexity and variation mark their work, structured around energetic and noisy beats. It sounds harsh at times, but never brutal. The warmth of subtly used ambient sounds softens the mix, making it enjoyable all way through more than seventy minutes of quality electronica. It is hard to point out specific tracks out of "Touching the Void" because of the seamless, smooth experience of hearing the whole album.

MATTIAS HUSS