Album Review

Adventure – Adventure

• 17th Sep 2008

Moorish accelerated synths on helium from Baltimore’s Wham City Arts Collective man Benny Boeldt

To make retro baroque Sega beats sound anthemic and significant is some achievement. This record sends those caught in its spell deliriously happy and back to a childhood of endless sugar frenzied hours entranced by on screen adventures. From the luminous tetris inspired graphics to a magical Legend Of Zelda journey ‘Adventure’ perfectly captures the late eighties 8-bit video game soundtracks and pre-programmed Casio keyboard samples. A dolly mixture of swirling and metronomic synths pushed onwards by a pounding drum machine force your body to throw knowing robotic shapes. The influence of late-seventies electro pop pushes ‘Advenute’ beyond the realms of childhood fantasy, yet Boeldt’s melodic compositions never take themselves seriously enough to fall in to the bleak world of Crystal Castles. A weakness for trend less and recurring Eastern European scale structures makes shifing these dance floor friendly tracks from your mind or the smile from your face impossible. Spankingly fresh simply because it is so kitsch.