Editor Reviews:

Album Details:
This 2000 Trip-hop Release Meshes Scanner's Noisy, Ambient Ramblings with Spooky's Grooving Hip-hop Beats. The Result Fits Nicely Into What Sulphur Records USA / UK Defines as the 'meld Series': 'to Explore the Union of One Artist with Another, Breaking the Mould, Dissolving Expectations, in the Hope of Opening a Fresh Wound in the Sound.' Includes Thirteen Tracks in All.

Amazon.com:
Being the king of New York's illbient scene, DJ Spooky brings a theory of musical abstraction to The Quick and The Dead, the first installment of the Meld Series. Scanner's sampled cell-phone conversations seem the perfect complement to this terrestrial soundscape, and together the pair weave a cohesive mix out of scattered, lazy hip-hop beats finished with refreshingly unpolished production. Even the eighth track, "Guanxi," which features Caipirinha recording artist Rachael Finn plucking out the most haunting cello arrangement, never strays too far from the digitized aural skyline. Fans of Spooky's earlier work should delight in the familiar crackle of ham-radio samples and random transmissions that rise to the top of nearly every track. Sparse, off-kilter beats and the occasional scratch-and-rap ties the album together, making its urban collage credible. As the saying goes, "The world is in the mix." --Aaron Kirschnick

Rating : - Not as impressed as others with this work...

Do yourself a favor and pick up DJ Spooky's "Confessions of a Dead Dreamer" or "Celestial Mechanix"...both albums are infinitely better and more condusive to repeated listening.

Unfortunately, the Scanner vs. DJ Spooky effort comes off like a trippy new age remix of a Yanni album (minus the overblown choral stuff). There's a paucity of backbeats in this album, as the artists favor a more "etheral" feel with only infrequent jarring mix inclusions. If you want relatively modern trippy wandering noise, then get the album. If you're wanting a little bit more in the way of track structure and backbeats, then look elsewhere.

BTW - trippy noise doesn't get any better than Can's "Tago Mago" tracks 5 and 6 or a late 70s Eno/Fripp album.

JB