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Album Reviews
Album Review: Various Artists – Soma Coma Volume 3 (Soma Records)
By Paul Vig | Published on Monday 3 August 2009
Glasgow’s consistently good dance label hits us with the third volume of their electronic chill out compilation, in fine fashion. With tracks from Vector Lovers, Alex Smoke, Slam and The Black Dog there are some big hitters here. Martin Wheeler as Vector Lovers throws in the excellent ‘Melodies And Memories’, while TBD presents the haunting and chilling ‘Ghost Vexations’, scant piano, no bassline, just mood and atmosphere, it’s sublime. So much so, it’s a shame that TBD’s other offering, ‘Transmission Start’, is a little too abstract and minimal. But the good outweigh the not so good. Skintrade’s ‘Psalm’ is from 1994, and is an 11 minute epic lying between the softer parts of Autechre’s ‘Incunabula’ album and Moby’s ‘Play’ LP – it perhaps comes off as a little sugary, but is lovely chill nonetheless. Alex Smoke’s ‘Prima Materia’ is harder, and more cinematic, with a sense of urgency in its string and horn segments, while Slam again employ Dot Allison on vox duty in ‘We Medicate’ to create a piece of slightly brooding menace. Slam’s Stuart McMillan later offers up ‘Total Toxic Tranquillity’, which is slightly folky in its aspect. Although some are stronger than others, there is no bad track on this disc, and it all flows very well as a collection. It should be on the summer shopping list of anyone into decent down tempo, or chilled out electronica. Recommended. PV
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