AMG Review of Wind That Blows the Robot's Arms

Stewart Mason
All Music Guide

An experimental solo project by producer/mixer Stefen Robinson, Yea Big's The Wind That Blows the Robot's Arms is chopped-up micro-glitch electronica, stringing together brief bursts of keyboards, beats, and found-sound samples edited within an inch of their lives, occasionally topped with vocal parts that sound like they were recorded with Robinson's finger on the fast-forward button. Though some of the briefer tracks are basically full-on electronic noise, Robinson cleverly underpins most of the album with just enough of a backbeat to keep the listener pleasantly off-kilter: that the album is almost, but not quite, danceable is a big part of its maddening charm, especially on the nearly normal "Floccinaucinihilipilification." Robinson also manages a surprising amount of textural variety, even introducing a heavily processed acoustic guitar sound in the excellently titled "Nice People Are Those Who Have Nasty Minds." For glitch and noise fans only, but that audience should love this.