A Guy Called Gerald - First Try

Taken from http://www.boomkat.com/item.cfm?id=15962

What with the genius of Gerald Simpson coming to light once again in recent months with the unearthing of 808 State’s classic Prebuild material and the re-release of the mighty Newbuild, we figure its only fair that the man decides to ditch the coffee table drumbnbum of his last album and instead returns to top form. Gerald was always an innovator – starting off with the unchallenged Acid supremacy he concocted with analogue Manchester brethren back in the day, moving on to the frightening, seminal genius of “Voodoo Ray” and onto the proto-junglist Hardcore of his deeply inspired “Black Street Technology” set – Gerald’s credentials cannot be messed with. After that it all went a bit wrong, too many classy, smooth edges to the production, no rough edges..... game over. Or was it? Well, while “First Try” may not exactly bring anything new to the table, this is easily the man’s finest release in a long long time – deep spacious machine music inspired by Detroit (the ace title track), Autechre-driven analog intricacies (Meaning) and even some tricky minimal House music (Pump). In case you were wondering why it is that all our musical heroes at some point or another loose the plot....... here’s a nice exception to the rule. Ace.