Raw Digits

Dance fans hoping for another club-stormer on the order of "Darn (Cold Way O Lovin')" may initially be disappointed by the second Super_Collider full-length, though once it sinks in that this is in no sense a dance record (at least, not on this planet), it's easy to see Raw Digits for what it is: an intriguing, individual work of art by two of the freakiest producers in electronica. One of the most distinctive sounds around hasn't changed too much; not that they worry about copyrights, since it's odds-on no one else could duplicate it. The beats, when they're around, are just as heavy as on Head On, and Jamie Lidell is still doing his paranoid funky-robot impression — occasionally a dead-ringer for Daryl Hall. And the effects, as before welded to a framework of no-stone-unturned breakbeat electro, are still unholy and completely unrecognizable, like a Kid 606 remix of P-Funk trying to score Forbidden Planet. What's different is that Raw Digits is even less a pop record than the first, much closer to the unhinged Dark Magus clatter of Muddlin Gear, Lidell's solo LP for Warp. Definitely not the Pet Shop Boys then, but a real treat for those who hunger for a genuinely funky record with more ideas per second than Autechre.