Album Review

Commander Keen – My Tascam Dreams

• 12th Oct 2007

Initially, this just seems like your run of the mill piece of ambience. With aspects of the sepia sinisterism of Boards of Canada alongside the sparseness of such acts as Mogwai or Low, there seems to be little that distinguishes these five tracks from the glut of other similar artists. It is after several listens, particularly through headphones, that these tracks begin to stick in; on Panic Attack, glitches of noise dance over ominous sounding chimes and distant horns. As the records progresses, it becomes clear on tracks such as ‘I Thought If You Heard This’ and ‘You Know the Words’ that they are rooted less in the experimental genre than they are in folk. On closer inspection, the strings and horns meld wonderfully into a kind of pastoral landscape which, whilst atmospherically similar to an album such as Geogaddi by BOC, is closer in feel to something by Sigur Ros.