- The great thing about electrohouse is that, like UK breakbeat hardcore in its heyday, its proponents are unafraid to chuck everything but the kitchen sink into a track and see what sticks. Sudden switches in direction and crass conflicting sounds might be ‘unmusical’ or even ‘unsophisticated’ but they can really make sense in a club environment.
‘Meteorchester’ is cast in this mold. It’s gloriously over-the-top and just plain fun, throwing together metallic strings, bleeps, overdriven synths and one of those farty “whaaap whaaap” basslines that have been inescapable ever since ‘Doom's Night’. It’s kind of a “drunken master” approach to dance music – a chaotic, unstable and constantly evolving exterior cloaking a carefully crafted and deadly interior structure. Actually that is a fantastic metaphor (I praise myself) because I can imagine this track going over very well with drunk people. Albeit drunk people who are already dance music fans (i.e. not the Justice demographic).
There is definitely a continuity with Basteroid’s previous releases on Areal – the same devotion to a combination of sweetness and acidity, and the same inventiveness with sounds (if not rhythms) but taken to a new level of gleeful excess. Fans of Gabriel Ananda and Ada should find a lot to like here.
The b-side ‘Un Dos Windows’ is a much more subdued affair. It’s inoffensive and contains some nice ideas (particularly the sound near the end that sounds like a car failing to start) and could be a nice builder. Unfortunately it is probably forever doomed to lose out to its more extroverted sibling on the flipside.
TracklistA Meteorchester
B Un Dos Windows