Current Value
Platinum Scatter


4.5
superb

Review

by I trust hype on everything that isnt death metal EMERITUS
January 12th, 2023 | 50 replies


Release Date: 2022 | Tracklist


In 1992, Warp Records founder Steve Beckett made the following observation: "It's not going to be long before an artist can make an album, film, CD1 and CDO in his or her own bedroom for a few thousand pounds, advertise the "product" to hundreds of thousands of people directly via the computer networks and sell directly to them. This will completely cut out the need for the usual trek around the major entertainment companies looking for finance, and could lead to things getting really interesting."

Exactly what he predicted has come true. The result, however, is that art and creativity seem more disposable than perhaps ever before. The quaint optimism of the early 90’s now lies obscured under a cloud of digital age cynicism. As the technology to make professional-grade art proliferates among the general population, a veritable deluge of media is thrust into the cyber world each and every day. Instead of democratizing creativity and ushering a new age of inspiration, both artists and their audience are drowning in a cybernetic sea of information. In the context of music, the gatekeeping done by record labels since the beginning of modernity holds almost no sway in the underground. Anyone can set up a Bandcamp profile, submit their creations to distributors, and have their music in the hands of consumers almost as soon as they finish creating it.

Undertaking the Sisyphean task of finding art with true merit and value is harder than it has ever been. Novelty has been diminished into simple recapitulation; taking generic forms and smashing them together in hopes that fusion can create newness. Art criticism contextualizes novelty as a sum of its parts, and rarely as something genuinely idiosyncratic and fresh. Digital cynicism, it seems, pervades all.

But every now and then, something truly new does come along. Even if these works are nearly impossible to find and identify, they do still exist, giving us a ray of hope that perhaps Western culture is more than a desiccated corpse. Current Value’s Platinum Scatter is one of those albums. Bursting forth out of seemingly nowhere (or, rather, some obscure page on Bandcamp), sound artist Tim Eliot, who has been honing his craft since the early 90’s, has put together a collection of sounds that feels genuinely, ecstatically, new.

Any music critic worth their weight in salt could explain where this album comes from. Forged in the fires of a long tradition of European electronic music, Platinum Scatter seems, on the surface, like yet another sum of its influences. However, every community discussion regarding this album is nearly half arguments about just exactly what it is. Is it drum and bass? Is it IDM? Is it techno? No one can agree, because it feels like none of those things entirely. All of those influences converge into some sort of primal creative sludge that evokes a very specific emotional reaction:

“Wow, I’ve never heard this before.”

Tracks like the album highlight, Eternal Recurrence, transport the listener to an internal space where you no longer think about insignificant formal properties like genre and influence; you simply feel the music, inhale it and let it spread throughout your body like a full, deep breath. The title track, another highlight, functions similarly where you no longer think, “wow, this is good techno” or “wow, this is great drum and bass”. No, this is good music, purely and simply, throughout the entire 14 track duration.

If you are at all interested in electronic music, even tangentially, I urge you to give this album a listen. At the very least, you will emerge able to say, “today I heard something I’ve never heard before, done in a way that I never considered before this moment.” This experience is the essence of art, the impetus that drives us to continue creating and grasping for new expressions we never even thought possible. Hyperbolic, perhaps, but if we truly want to combat our cynicism, perhaps a little hyperbole isn’t such a bad thing, especially in the face of something that is genuinely, unironically good.



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user ratings (11)
3.5
great

Comments:Add a Comment 
Hyperion1001
Emeritus
January 12th 2023


27340 Comments


in retrospect probably the best album of last year. please give it a spin you will not regret it.

JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
January 12th 2023


62662 Comments


peeped a couple of tracks off this a few months ago and was a little lost by them ngl, but this definitely piques my curiosity enough to give it another shot
awesome to see you writing again

Hyperion1001
Emeritus
January 12th 2023


27340 Comments


johnny i am a dumb boomer can you please explain to me how i embed the bandcamp player at the bottom of the review? i tried just pasting the embed codes but nothing is working

JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
January 12th 2023


62662 Comments


ummm if you've got the code, the only thing i can think is that you have to toggle it from soundcloud (default) to bandcamp mode?

AnimalsAsSummit
January 12th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Best album of 2022 I’ve jammed probably 10 plus times or more

AnimalsAsSummit
January 12th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Some of the best songwriting I’ve ever heard in my whole life. Wtf Current Value how does he do it.

AnimalsAsSummit
January 12th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Also thanks for the review hype this album gets me hype!

Hyperion1001
Emeritus
January 12th 2023


27340 Comments


oh well i cant figure it out rn but i will keep trying! my old decaying brain just cant handle all this zoomer tech.

also thanks, album is so good i felt like it needed a review.

Demon of the Fall
January 12th 2023


35955 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

'peeped a couple of tracks off this a few months ago and was a little lost by them ngl, but this definitely piques my curiosity enough to give it another shot'

yeah, I'm still (mostly) at this stage, although I do think this has some cool ideas, just not sure if I really 'got' enough of them for it to really knit itself together. I probably just need more time to digest something which could be considered overwhelming, in the wrong hands.

nice review Hype

DoofDoof
January 12th 2023


16141 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

I think this album gets 'deeper' the further into the tracklist you go so anyone switching off half way through will not get the best picture of the album imo



It starts off strong but becomes unbelievable from the midway point on

Demon of the Fall
January 12th 2023


35955 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

I can’t remember the last time I purposefully stopped listening to an album halfway through. I’m not noticing a noticeable change in the second half just at the moment, curious. 🤔

Hyperion1001
Emeritus
January 12th 2023


27340 Comments


agreed, from the title track onwards is the best run of music i heard all year.

eternal recurrence is just so unbelievably good.

DoofDoof
January 12th 2023


16141 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

'I can’t remember the last time I purposefully stopped listening to an album halfway through'



but subconsciously? ;D

JohnnyoftheWell
Staff Reviewer
January 12th 2023


62662 Comments


"I can’t remember the last time I purposefully stopped listening to an album halfway through"

done this twice to the new Esoctrilihum in the last 3 days lol

Demon of the Fall
January 12th 2023


35955 Comments

Album Rating: 3.0

Ah, you see there I just wouldn’t have bothered hitting play in the first place

DoofDoof
January 12th 2023


16141 Comments

Album Rating: 4.5

:'(

AnimalsAsSummit
January 15th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

Best album of 2022 easy

Storm In A Teacup
January 15th 2023


46551 Comments

Album Rating: 2.0

Lol

AnimalsAsSummit
January 15th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

As far as DnB goes, this is a direction not yet taken. Also this is filled to the brim with amazing syncopated beats that’s by all accounts should not be this catchy. Literally some of the catchiest tunes I’ve heard in a long while. And Current Value has also excelled not only at making an accessible yet experimental album for DnB that moves us more into the future, but he also is doing things with production that haven’t yet been done. The precise frequencies.... sub bass... perfect modulation.... this is a producer/ musicians dream. And I think it’s also a perfect album for those new to electronic to see how far along it has come, and how incredible it has become.

AnimalsAsSummit
January 15th 2023


6180 Comments

Album Rating: 5.0 | Sound Off

This is the epitome of everything I want from songs. Each one is a world unto its own.



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