REVIEW: The Starseeds, Parallel Life (Millennium)
- Tim Mohr
Hush all you lonely, jaded scenesters, coming down, hungover, crying or kissing away lost moments of the past. Dubadelic waves of bass, hypnotic crests and troughs of synthetic whale noises, whispered confessions...a beat drifts in from afar: the Starseeds are playing.
Way back in the early 90s, there was a school of music that formed a bridge between Primal Scream's Screamadelica and the ambient dub of the Orb. Bands like One Dove and State of Grace put female vocals above slow beats - a style that over time evolved into things like Gus Gus, Sneaker Pimps, even Portishead.
The Starseeds are students of this school as well, though they tend to sound more like the early masters One Dove than like more recent groups. Utilizing a very Orb-esque set of principles to guide their percussion, Starseeds add touches of twangy guitar that show their devotion to Primal Scream. Vocals - like the manipulated lines in One Dove's "White Love" - are often looped or cut up, used like all the other instruments that are loaded onto the computer.
In many cases their programmed beats follow stubbornly early-90s patterns, refusing to grapple with more recent innovations. This means, of course, that the Starseeds are willing to allow attention to focus on the essence of their music rather than on any particular part (these days, typically some minor innovation of drum sequencing) - and their willingness is warranted by the genuinely effective soundscapes they manage to create.
