Hello world, meet Mr Tim Exile: glitzy electro pioneer and all-round noisebox genius who is currently showcasing his inimitable brand of dark electro-pop on Listening Tree – a befuddling digi-funk work out that rolls effortlessly between baroque ambience and babbling esoterica while vocal lines ramble around underneath like a demented Mike Skinner after just the right amount of ketamine.
One of Warp’s newest additions, our Tim wastes no time in grabbing the bull by the horns and feeding it into some sort of deranged and tumescent synth to create a priapic 80s robo sex-stomp that sounds like Depeche Mode after two fistfuls of Viagra and half a pint of adrenochrome. But, just when you think Tim’s schizoid sex-obsessed tomfoolery probably warrants police attention, the sugar-sweet soma of ‘Family Galaxy’ thumps out of the speakers with the kind of swaggering, sublime nonchalance that makes Kim Jong-Il sound like a shy, retiring schoolgirl and you instantly forgive him. Moments into the disco strut of ‘Fortress’, and you’re sold.
Driving beats and glitches of techno-hysteria glide into disorientating shades of almost- ambience, ‘Pay Tomorrow’ providing ample evidence of exactly why Tim has attracted a heady host of admirers, including Hot Chip and Autechre. ‘Pay Tomorrow’ and ‘Bad Dust’ make for a rather brillaint mid-album duo, shot through with thumping urgency and 8-bit glitch-funk. However, the album ends on the rather anticlimatic, ideas-free stodge of ‘Listening Tree’ and ‘I Saw The Weak Hand Fall’ – disrupting the momentum of the tracks preceding them. It’s a bit like drinking a cocktail of strychnine and bits of glass directly after one of your best shags ever. So, a good album without ever being a great one, ‘Listening Tree’ is more than enough to keep the twitches at bay until Aphex Twin fires up his Mac again.
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