Liquid Stranger - The Invisible Conquest

Interchill Records



Ever since John Frusciante dropped the brilliant but enigmatic album "To Record Only Water for Ten Days", this friend of yours has developed a pathological fascination with water through music. So it must be with great expectations that one grabs a record by a project called Liquid Stranger. This is the alias of Martin Staaf, a Swedish guy who plays an ultra-dubbed version of ambient sounds, which are heavy on the bass and yet find exciting new ways to percolate through a massive wall of programmed drums and minimal overlays.

Starting off with "Vibration Ruling the Nation", a self-explanatory number on the mechanics of beats, frequencies and matter, "The Invisible Conquest", out on Interchill, is a sonic postcard that travels all over Africa and Eurasia to deliver a perfume all of its own.

Perhaps expecting a tough, breakbeat-loving crowd, Staaf smashes your everyday dub into small pieces only to build a mantra that owes a good deal to King Tubby's early experiments (as heard on "Familiar and Unknown"), and the messy extravaganza of Bollywood ("Cook N Curry").

But take "Drop Sacrifice", for instance – there, you'll find snippets of incongruous speech against a contemplative, instrumental pattern made of a bit of scratching, some lazy beats, and a definite Indian fragrance. The all-inclusive policy remains for the rest of the album, particularly on segments like "Splash Matters", and the Sneaky & Adaptable mix of "Mutants".

Sometimes openly reminiscent of now label-mates Eat Static, other times just reaching for a vacant place in microelectronic history, Liquid Stranger's sound has the grandeur of its peers without building an humongous ego. By the time this private show draws to a close, "Faun on the Waters" makes us feel even more mundane with its suggested imagery of belly dancers and incantatory serpents.

And for all that we give this record two thumbs way up and a standing ovation, even if its music overtly invites to a glorious night of couch-surfing.

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