Gagarin - Ard Nev

The first of many problems with Gagarin's ambient grime offering is that it is often too clever for its own good. On the tunes which do have a convincingly grimy feel, like Dirty Sweet and Merkage, there is nothing that feels new or particularly inspired. Ambient music often has greater depth of field than upfront dance; Gagarin however produces everything in the mid-range. No dirty, squelching subs or tweaked-out, filtered acid noises – instead there is an almost beat-less wash of electronica; snares and kicks that barely register; and basslines that sound almost Casio-keyboard simple. Loops sweep in and out of each other, but lead nowhere. At its best this album is overly simplistic, at its worst it is bland. The mere mention of 'avant-grime' evokes a nasty prospect: the broadsheet-friendly dilution of a vital and still nascent underground scene. [Bram Gieben]