AMG Review of House of Distraction

Rick Anderson
All Music Guide

Lovers of abstract beats, musique concrete, and general electronic avant-gardism will already be familiar with the Schematic label, which boasts a roster rich with such perplexing life forms as Push Button Objects, Otto von Schirach, and Dino Felipe. This is the label's third compilation release, and the compositions offered range from the almost purely abstract (Felipe's "Hedges," which sounds like a drum-and-bugle corps being eaten by robotic aliens) to the relatively coherent and funky (Matmos' "Infects Devine"), with occasional excursions into surprising beauty (09's "Happy Bot") and disconcertingly gentle drill'n'bass (Jake Mandell's "Nihon Sanzen"). Not exactly a party record, unless your parties are deeply strange affairs, but there's a certain intellectual danceability to most of this stuff that will attract people unpredictably.