Infinite Scale: Sound Sensor
Toytronic

Past Toytronic releases like the Everything Is Green comp and Ochre's A Midsummer Nice Dream impressed as accomplished in execution but not dynamically compelling; to be blunt, the imprint's IDM sounded a bit too polite. Infinite Scale's Sound Sensor appears to portend much the same when “Acoustic Snails” opens the half-hour EP unimposingly with soft breaks and glistening washes but after two minutes the song heats up into a more spacious tabla-flavoured electro-industrial episode. Bubbly beat percolations and insistent clicking patterns merge with glimmering synth patterns in the also-strong “Ghost” though it's the dubby bass line that most memorably propels it. With its symphonic washes and soft church organ lines, “In Motion” brings the EP back to Toytronic's signature sound but, thankfully, Infinite Scale re-enters more potent territory with a dose of hip-hop in the grimy “Pirkel” and the dreamy “Fade”; the closer “Jaw Break” even suggests Autechre with its ominous throbs and clatter. Normally, such derivativeness wouldn't be something to celebrate but here it is; hopefully Sound Sensor is a harbinger of a more aggressive and explorative direction for the label's future releases.

June 2005