Track Listings (7) - Disc #1| All Artists: Isotope 217 Title: Utonian Automatic Members Wishing: 0 Total Copies: 0 Label: Thrill Jockey Original Release Date: 8/24/1999 Re-Release Date: 9/14/1999 Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock Styles: Indie & Lo-Fi, Experimental Music, Progressive, Progressive Rock Number of Discs: 1 SwapaCD Credits: 1 UPCs: 790377006322, 790377006315 |
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Search - Isotope 217 :: Utonian Automatic
 | Isotope 217 Utonian Automatic Genres: Alternative Rock, Special Interest, Pop, Rock
Maybe it's the space-age, headlong twang that wraps around the near-dub rhythms on "Solaris," but Isotope 217 sound like a band that has succeeded at slipping through the cracks in at least three musical categories. Percus... more » |
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Amazon.com Maybe it's the space-age, headlong twang that wraps around the near-dub rhythms on "Solaris," but Isotope 217 sound like a band that has succeeded at slipping through the cracks in at least three musical categories. Percussionists Dan Bitney and John Herndon (famed for their work with Tortoise) give Isotope a mathematically complex rhythmic frame, and guitarist Jeff Parker plays a guitar that's the sonic equivalent of clarified butter. But he's a grinder, too, especially on the opened "LUH," which rips and contorts. Then there are the keyboards, burbling and gurgling and popping and bouncing, like some Stereolab session that has broken the pop code and interpolated minimalism, avant-garde electronics, and more. But esteemed jazzbo Rob Mazurek's here on cornet, too, giving a riffing jazz vibe to "Looking After Life on Mars" and inspiring a slow, almost balladic rambling on "Real MC's." Isotope's debut, The Unstable Molecule, might've promised an accurate, precise machine, but Utonian adds a high degree of unpredictability to the formula. --Andrew Bartlett Similar CDs
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CD ReviewsIsotope's Apex J. Christmas | New Brunswick, NJ | 11/15/2003 (5 out of 5 stars) "Proving wrong critics who dismissed them as watered down electric Miles, Isotope's second and finest album is one of a handful of examples of a successful and truly organic blend of jazz, rock and electronica, with elements of afro-latin and hip-hop (most of which come from the same circle of Chicago musicians). Driven by the quirky compositional wits of Mazurek and Parker, Utonian Automatic melts its way from chaotic freak-outs into robotic elegies, always slightly understated.More interesting than their solid debut, and far stronger than their under-developed third album, this remains the best example of their work." Not the debut, but good nonetheless Matthew D. Mercer | Chicago, IL United States | 01/13/2000 (4 out of 5 stars) "U_A doesn't soar quite so much as the debut release, but it's got its own niche when compared to it. The trombone is absent from this release which has affected the sound. It is generally more upbeat and a little crazier on the rock-improv side of things, although it still has enough dynamics to go around." Buy their debut first chris wildeman | carlisle, pa | 08/12/2000 (4 out of 5 stars) "although this is definitely a good album, it doesn't seem to have the greatness that their previous album had, and the loss of the trombone may be much of the reason why. the more prevalent guitar, although very skillfully done, seems to limit much of what makes this band so great, the sublety that you have with their combination of percussion and keyboards. it is also a little bit more straight forward of an album than the previous one, and makes me think more of a turing machine kind of band than a tortoise kind of band (both of which are also absolutely brilliant). in short, buy the debut (the unstable molecule) first, listen to it for hours on end, feel yourself pick all the perfectly placed notes and quirky rhythms, and then buy this album and see how you feel about it. i think you will say that it is very good but not the first one."
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