Search - Electric Birds :: Panorama

Mike Martinez's second effort as Electric Birds flirts with minimal techno as a counterpoint to his lushly overlapping soundscapes, and the result is hypnotic. The opening "Avocet" spontaneously restructures itself mid-track, where another artist would let it loop; "A Green Frost" evokes a dark, frozen forest without resorting to sound-effect cliche; and "Terra Forms" simply slips by in the night, virtually unnoticed but with its presence felt. Martinez has effectively swallowed his influences and mastered his tools, and the result- a focused, deliberate work of almost visual intensity- is a rare pleasure in a climate of half-baked demos. - Rob Geary - XLR8R Magazine - November 2001