Kid Spatula

"Full Sunken Breaks" (Album, 2000)

Released on his own Planet Mu label, Mike Paradinas' excursion into the outer limits of techtronica as Kid Spatula is an inspired mess. Inspired because Paradinas lets his imagination run wild over twenty brief tracks, without letting reflection or review cloud the original ideas behind each track. A mess for the same reason.

For the most part, Full Sunken Beats sounds like seventy minutes of half-baked ideas. Paradinas never seems to know what is great and what isn't. Dip into this anywhere and you're likely to find something intriguing. Problem is it usually only lasts for twenty seconds before flying off at a tangent. The hardcore techno elements sound amateurish and retro whereas the ambient pieces stand out as more inspired and original. Highlights are come on board for its simplistic melodic line, qisope and kid spatulet. All the others sound like work in progress, two-and-a-half-minute jingles each with a dozen different ideas crammed into too small a space. Japanese vocalist Kazumi (who also appears on royal astronomy album) adds her distinctive voice to three tracks, including a reworking of the fear from µ-ziq's royal astronomy, here called not the fear. Hardcore techno breakbeats, out of time percussion and sudden changes in direction and tempo all sound like the right ingredients for something special. Instead, what we get is half-serious, half-hearted, talented but decidedly rough sketches of pictures that inside Paradinas' head probably look pretty amazing. 4/10

Rob Dyer