Review Summary: The True Private Psychedelic Reel
It would seem than these days the better way to achieve some kind of critical recognition is to be unclassifiable. You mix several different styles into an album, sometimes even in the same track, and you have some kind of "intellectual", challenging album that is good just because it defies conventions. Certainly, that is the impression you are most likely to get on your first listen to
The Phoenix. The album sounds ambitious and weird at many places, and Fhloston Paradigm does not seem concerned with coherence. One would go as far as to say the record's intention to cause some type of discomfort to the listener with its psychedelic marriage of electronic styles. But, again, that is just the first impression.
The Phoenixbelongs to that class of records that sound better in subsequent listens. Then the previous uneasiness feels more like an increasing curiosity, and incoherence turns into variety. Because if the whole may seem disjointed, the individual tracks are, for the most part, weird, addictive pieces of house and techno. Some tracks are, indeed, rather obscure and experimental, but many of them are also catchy and very danceable. Yes, the album revels itself like a fun experience after all. It is in that sense that you realize the record does not take itself too seriously, and perhaps that initial impression of ambition may be, in fact, just an exercise in free, fun experimentation.
While this may be King Britt first full-length under the alias of Fhloston Paradigm, the American producer has been releasing music for almost 20 years. With that in mind,
The Phoenix appears more like a condensing of his musical incursions in different genres than a mindless exploration made for the sake of being cutting-edge -- a case that is sadly becoming more frequent these days.
The Phoenix is one of those bizarre works created to be enjoyed, the product of a careless, creative mind that finds joy in toying with the limits of what can be both fun and daring.
