Efa (Caroline)
2003
Momentum
About This Album
Electronic dance music has been plenty vulnerable to stumbling into thorny rockist traps. A lot of the commonplace principles -- innovation over tradition, timeliness over timelessness, 12" over LP, anonymity over ego -- run directly against the rock rulebook, yet a phrase like "the early stuff is the best" or "this couldn't possibly top [insert title of debut]" is frequently used without much thought, as an offhanded dismissal of a later work. Momentum, Monolake's fifth album, will unfortunately fall victim to this shortsightedness. Admittedly, it's not as groundbreaking or as crushing as the early singles collected on Hongkong -- though it's easily the most accomplished and bracing release that had come since then. For the sake of fairness, there's plenty to admire in the output that bridges Hongkong to this; when strung together, Interstate, Gravity, and Cinemascope present an uninterrupted succession of pinpoint-precise tracks that establishes and hones a specific sound that no one else could possibly clone. The key word is admire; admiring those albums is easy enough, but the forbidding tendencies have a way of placing the listener at a distance.
Track List (try tracks 1,2,3,4,5 and 6)

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