Moog Acid

It's hard to imagine a better old-school/new-school collaboration in electronic music than Jean-Jacques Perrey and Luke Vibert. Hardly needing an introduction, the first is a French musique concrète expert who began dabbling with tape and electronics back in the '50s, the second only one of the brightest electronica producers to emerge in the early '90s — with a production style that marked him as one of the few who bridged the gap between techno and trip-hop without being overly academic or merely layering some old Roy Ayers samples over a stray breakbeat. (As if the accumulation of talent wasn't already concentrated, Jon Tye of Twisted Science helps out on most tracks.) And, as could be expected, the two prove to be a good match. Although it's easy to see who's handling the Moog and who's handling the acid, the two have virtually identical working philosophies — slight academic leanings, but always within the context of relatively straight-ahead arrangements. (Perrey's "Psyche Rock" was poppy enough to serve as one of the catchiest television themes of the '90s, for Futurama.) Vibert and Perrey also have plenty of humor and an affinity for bemusing music; Perrey takes the occasional poetic license to deliver readings from The Book of Enoch over the music, or his beliefs regarding communication with dolphins. Also, he uncannily conjures the rather eerie ghosts of musique concrète's past, while Vibert anchors them with expert productions. Aside from the mystical flavor, the duo aren't exactly reaching for the stars with these productions. The tracks are more the 21st century equivalent of Perrey-Kingsley's vision of lock-solid arrangements accompanied by the far-out sound of the Moog as a lead voice.