September 27, 2000
Rescate 137 / Muddlin Gear
They both release solo albums within one week of each other.
As Cristian Vogel and Jamie Lidell regroup to finalise the details of the second Super_Collider album (its gestation protracted by Lidell's migration from Brighton to Berlin), both release solo albums within one week of each other. But while Super_Collider's debut, 'Head On', was a genuinely exciting proposition - a delirious alchemy of house, funk and soul - only Vogel, on his seventh lone venture, scales similar heights of electronic innovation.
On the other hand, Jamie Lidell's 'Muddlin Gear' is an album - and we use that term generously - that languished in a box in the Spymania office for several years before Warp offered to release it, envisaging Lidell, rightly, as a long-term investment. After one listen, your tolerance of pointless avant-electronica, pretty sturdy up till now, collapses to its knees sobbing, as Lidell skeedaddleedoowaps aimlessly through a lot of very bad fuzzy freestyle noodling that single-handedly makes The Fast Show's Jazz Club sketches seem like the apex of man's musical endeavour. 2/10
Play both these records together and you've probably got the great lost Super_Collider album. If you're only going to play one, however, best make it Vogel's.
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