Enthusiast

Released amid a flurry of new releases from Douglas Benford's variously named projects in late 2001/early 2002, Enthusiast doesn't particularly stand out. Under the name si-cut.db, the CD offers a well-crafted dose of IDM and experimental techno, but it lacks freshness, audacity. The press release states most of the sounds used in the nine tracks were derived from wood sources, but the listener would be damned to find any proof of that. The dosage between glitchy abstract pieces and more beat-driven, melody-laden numbers has been carefully measured. "Local Colour" boasts an interesting synthetic dub flavor, "It Can End With a Letter" couples an insisting dance pulse with experimental sonic wizardry (sounding at times very close to Stock, Hausen & Walkman), but in the end it just sounds a little too easy. As one runs down the track list, the music veers more and more toward the dancefloor — or is it that the ears get used to uncovering Benford's camouflaged beats? No, the music does become easier (aka of more "general appeal") during the second half of the album. Motifs repeat often for too long without apparent reason, tracks develop in predictable ways. Enthusiast is definitely not his best effort. ~ François Couture, Rovi