Cristian Vogel - Double Deux / Delicado

Does anyone remember when Christian Vogel just made music? Wasn't he one of those "pioneering wonky techno" types? Over the past year and a half we've seen him further indulge his predilection for experimental sounds and textures, though to call his releases on Tresor ETC accessible is rather misleading. Double Deux / Delicado, with the subheader "music for the creations of Gilles Jobin," lacks the coherence of Vogel's other works, merely collecting the abstract explorations designed to accompany Jobin's choreography. There are nods to Vogel's dancefloor influences on here, with DD Engine aping Ø's industrialist crunch, and The Walk borrowing heavily from Matthew Herbert's darker moments. Artistic doesn't equate to aesthetic in this project, and the unpronounceable Transition_FloPo_SxSx is an oscillating storm of throbbing static that verges on the unlistenable. Obscure and disquieting, Double Deux's noise-scapes are fascinating, bleeding-edge art that affirms Vogel's status as a true genius. [Liam Arnold]