Saturday, August 26, 2006

Schengen - The Beijing of Our Career

Schengen are a little Bristol two piece and they have produced some good stuff and some not quite as good stuff (you can hear the best on their MySpace page). Now though (provided you can forgive the punning title) they have released an unreservedly excellent album through their cooperative label MakeMineMusic.

Some tracks such as City and Macdafun have been released before but this recording of the tracks are far superior (perhaps the quality of the engineering and mastering, perhaps experience, possibly both). If you have the Flow sampler give City a listen and then listen to the Beijing version to see the difference.

As for the new tracks it is all of a similar quality and has the warm analogue sounds that characterise the best Schengen stuff so far. The percussion is generally the weak spot in most Schengen tracks and while you're not going to be blown away by it this time either it is well-mixed and supports the strong melody lines that flow through the tracks rather than distracting from them.

The CD has fifteen tracks and there's no better introduction to the sound of Schengen. It is also at a phenomenally good price of £5 so if you fancy a prime slice of mellow electronica get over to MakeMineMusic and buy it right now.

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