Photek - Solaris

Finally released from the artistic pressure and unrelenting hype surrounding his full-length debut (1997's Modus Operandi), Photek producer Rupert Parkes moved on to embrace Chicago acid house and minimal techno for his sophomore Solaris. Whereas Modus Operandi portrayed an artist trapped within the style he'd pioneered (paranoid drum'n'bass), Solaris sounds more like an album Parkes actually wanted to make (instead of the one his fans expected). Indebted to hard-edged Chicago acid track producers like Adonis and Armando, Parkes constructed brittle, distorted drum-machine breaks (instead of the usual endlessly tweaked skittery breakbeats) and matched them with claustrophobic analog effects, most of which hark back at least a decade or so. Read More