Digital Soundclash: Album review: Chicane - Far From The Maddening .
Enter Far From The Maddening Crowds, the debut effort from Chicane (the alias of producer Nick Bracegirdle).
Released in 1997, Far From The Maddening Crowds (or FFTMC from now on) is a regular tour-de-force of chilled late '90s electronica. The album borrows elements of trance, ambient and downtempo and melds them seamlessly together into one extra-lush whole. The tunes themselves range from extremely chilled out downtempo tracks that almost verge on the ambient, such as the dreamlike 'Already There', to several more upbeat dance-y numbers like 'Red Skies'. In one of the biggest crimes in the history of pop music, this album was out-of-print and unavailable to purchase for an excruciating five year period due to some bullshit legal wranglings and licensing issues. The event of all this was that still-new copies of the album were at one time exchanging hands online for as much as 70 a pop. Thankfully, FFTMC was finally granted the re-release it so rightfully deserved in 2007, complete with the addition of one rather pointless bonus track - a brand new remix of club classic 'Offshore' (which already appeared in two separate mixes on the original pressing).
As for the music, it's a complete waste of time trying to pick standout tracks as the entire album is one constant stream of standouts. Each note is a beautifully crafted work of influence in its own right, and the fact that Bracegirdle managed to cause such a consistently fantastic album is one that still boggles my mind even today. A big heap of the biggest trance hits of the late '90s were one-offs by producers who, more often than not, failed to create the dizzy heights of their respective "anthems" again. The subject about FFTMC is that it feels like an entire album of absolute grade-A classic tunes, except that it all somehow came from the same godlike source.
There's a wonderful ebb and run to this album as a whole which goes still further to enhancing the mood it conjures up. Things go off slowly with the first two tracks 'Early' and 'Already There', the latter of which takes advantage to some evocative acoustic guitar work to promote its sun-drenched Mediterranean ambiance. FFTMC then begins to pick up a short pace with the aforementioned club favourite 'Offshore', whose acoustic hook and simple piano melodies are now recognisable to trance fans worldwide. While 'Offshore' is certainly more dance-oriented than the preceding two tracks, that chilled-out Balearic vibe is maintained perfectly through the changing tempos. The proportion of the album then rides gently through peaks and troughs of upbeat dance and relaxing downtempo tracks (such as the classic 'Sunstroke'), before reaching a climax with 'Offshore '97' - a reworking of the original deal with an energetic female vocal line courtesy of Power Circle's 'A Little Love, A Short Life' - and live with the sweeping come-down of 'The Drive Home'.
I really cannot stress enough but how utterly brilliant Chicane's debut full-length is. FFTMC is utterly drenched in the atmosphere of summer and chilled trips to Ibiza - a record that perfectly represents the musical era in which is was created.It seems as though Chicane was in a truly inspired place when he put thiscollection together and, let's face it, these are moments of brilliancethat he's just never been able to attain since. I doubt he ever will, but I certainly can't blame him for that; this album is simply too good.
No comments:
Post a Comment