Genetherapy by Tleilaxu (Review)
Once again, we have another release proving that not all electronic music falls into that amorphous realm called “electronica.” Yes, Tleilaxu employs keyboards, drum machines, samplers, and all of the other tools of your average electronic musician. What separates Tleilaxu from others (other than an odd band name) is the fact that many of the tracks are so far removed from the dance floor. Although the music is not all that dark, there’s an unsettling air that flows throughout most of the album. It’s similar to that weird feeling you get when you’re waking up, though still fairly asleep, and unsure of what’s going on.
Genetherapy’s music certainly takes its precious time to develop, and it’s not uncommon for a song to slowly change its form completely throughout its course. Ambient textures hover there somewhere in the background while sampled conversations, television interviews, and other amorphous noises clamor around for your attention. At times, this approach backfires. A track like “Saefern” never really gets past this phase, and ends up feeling like mere audio filler.
On “Sickness,” the beats sound like an afterthought; it feels like more time and effort was spent on the ambience that filters in through the rhythms. The same can be said for the album’s opener, the Talvin Singh-esque “Organisism,” where frantic, muffled tablas and hazy voices swirl around ghostly steel drums. The album’s highlight, “Healing” occurs early in the album, but feels like its culmination. Reverbed voices bounce around between your speakers while distant, scratchy beats occasionally pop up their heads and airy synths lazily drift by on the song’s edges. Occasionally, the beat will pick up, but never too much to distract from the hallucinatory mood of the song.
Released in collaboration with Darla, Tleilaxu is another example of said label’s view of electronic music and would be a likely contender for their “Bliss Out” series of moody atmospherica. Genetherapy is definitely not for those expecting a quick drum machine and sampler-fueled rush, and most certainly does not fit within the normal conceptions that people have when it comes to “electronica” music. It’s not quite ambient, not quite jungle, not quite trance, but a hazy, eerie mixture of all three, plus a few other genres for good measure. It’s hard for me to call this music particularly beautiful or awe-inspiring, but it certainly works when you’re staring at a computer at midnight, or when you’re lying in bed too alert to fall asleep, but too tired to get up.