CiM – Reference

A spiritual forebear of Skee Mask's Pool with none of the pomp

Back in 2000 I was running a relatively popular online music magazine. I clearly this turning up for review. And I literally just let it sit there for months. Everything about it screamed genre mediocrity: the title, cover art, label.....everything. Fast forward 22 years later and it’s come around again to haunt me courtesy of this welcome re-issue by Delsin. This time, the main thing I can hear is a sort of innocence to it all. Presets that totally evoke the era but sculpted into tracks that barely last a few minutes, before hurriedly moving on to the next idea. ‘Warm Data’ and ‘Clean Code’ perfectly sum up this accomplished aesthetic.

I absolutely recommend the pressing of the vinyl! The organic sound on this vinyl is really nice :)

Such a gorgeous record and a really good pressing for white vinyl. So pleased the CD-only tracks have been released on this.

honestly, this is quite simply one of the best IDM records ever made.

Fabulous album. New repress out now on Delsin, in either black or white vinyl. Great pressing and includes the tracks previously only available on CD.

Repress by Delsin on 2x12" coming in January 2022, including tracks previously only on CD

You rarely hear so many worthwhile ideas on a single electronic album. I agree that some songs should be longer, but it seems like while making one track, Walley got an idea for the next one, and quickly moved on. Who's to blame him. I prefer the CD because it has more tracks than the vinyl (it is also much cheaper).
Electronic music can take on characteristics of the machines which produced it --- it can also, and we know countless examples, sound profoundly human, tender, empathic, and sensitive, even without emulating instrumental music that existed before. In most songs here, CiM's juxtaposition of these qualities becomes a symbiosis. Listen to the glitching metallic beats of "Skim 2" stuttering forward like an ominous fax machine, the icy melody --- and then the pads arrive and what was mechanic then becomes a whisper in a sea of comfort and contentment. In "Blue Screen" this sequence is reversed to even greater accomplishment, and extended to over four minutes, to our delight. My favorite is "Cloud Cover". It hazily samples the basic melody of a Cuban big band standard and, to keep these weightless chords from floating towards the heavens, buttresses them with down-to-earth impatient drums.

CiM is thought provoking with the same magnitude of Bola, BoC.. The reference album track Geosat fill is placid on my mind and generates an ever present warm / chill up the spine at every listening. I am sure he is referenced by few in the Vaporwave genre..

This Album was just $10 bucks a couple years ago, now look! People just now realizing what a quality label deFocus was ??