Fyuti

Darrell Fitton's second full-length album as Bola easily recalls the finer and more fragile moments of his electronic peers Autechre and Boards of Canada. If anything, Fyuti is more accessible and certainly more soothing than the contemporary releases from those bands, Confield and Geogaddi. Fitton has seemingly compiled what amounts to an application to create film scores that should be handed to every producer of film noir movies in Hollywood and Europe. Fyuti frequently recalls the darker moments of Tangerine Dream, Vangelis, and Popol Vuh, though Fitton's experimental production layers on large doses of skittery drill'n'bass, weird sound effects and samples, and scads of twitchy staccato sounds that firmly date the album as post-Aphex Twin. Bola travels in decidedly cinematic realms, crafting music that begs for emotional, tactile responses, ranging from sadness to fear to suspense. All of this emotional manipulation is done through extended synth notes, pristine keyboards, and shimmering, otherworldly electronic elements. It's hard to imagine a more perfect opening to an electronic album than the first three songs of Fyuti. The ambient slow burn of "Vertiphon" shifts to bubbly underwater dynamics and the torque-heavy mechanistic "Shoob," followed by the spooky Skinny Puppy-does-IDM freakout of "Pae Pae." "Magnasushi" and "VM8" are equally effective standouts, the former fitted with ominous, ratchety effects and synthetic strings that put Craig Armstrong to shame, and the latter a slow aural painting created from whiffs of steam and a Martian church organ. Fyuti begs to be heard by film directors and producers. If the right people hear the album, it's fair to say that Fitton's name or his Bola alias will be attached to the opening credits of many a film. That being said, Fyuti stands just fine on its own, as a beautiful, accomplished electronic collection of moods and melodies.