Matthew Dear Asa Breed by: Gina Marich Mon:23-Jul-07 Label: Ghostly International Year: 2007 WB rating 81 out of 100

Remember when dance music was ‘the shit’?  I’m talking about that period when ravers ruled the school, when fluoro lycra pants and ecstasy were the height of cool and moves like ‘the driver’, ‘airwalker’ and the timeless ‘big fish, little fish, cardboard box’ were introduced onto the dance floor.  Those days are gone and we don’t miss them too much, but once in a while an album comes along that pays homage to the genre.

Too often these will be recycled, nostalgic and largely irrelevant, but not so with Matthew Dear’s Asa Breed, a natural evolution of the style, a hearty play on the entire dance music movement.

To fully appreciate the achievement that Asa Breed represents you have to remember that Dear has gone through a long metamorphosis, but accessibility has always eluded him. Labels like electronic pop and acid techno have been hard to shake and while his remixes for the likes of Hot Chip and Calude VonStroke were classic, his last album Backstroke failed to turn heads in the wider listening community.

In contrast, this album is a spicy, witty, mish-mash of sounds, instruments and visions.  While each track follows in a smooth transition they are utterly unlike each other and as such it’s an unsystematic collation of the electronic and acoustic where quirky, irregular percussion is partnered with weird keyboard riffs; Dear’s voice a deadpan monotone that brings the entire circus together.  While his baritone by itself is nothing special, the vocals are polyphonic and well pitched, woven into a complex pattern that lingers over the melodies and harmonies. 

There are a lot of surprises, like the track ‘Will Gravity Win Tonight?’ which begins with a weak, crackly voice and a strange, alienating string instrument. The even more risqué ‘Death to Feelers’ has some truly cosmic synthesiser sounds, but miraculously manages to avoid lameness, the sense is strong that Dear knows exactly where he’s going, and that he’s glad to take you there.

Asides from this vision, the true strong point of the album is its versatility. Just as you’re falling into a smooth dance beat Dear introduces a blast of indie rock, a riff that’s pure country or provokingly gothic. The product is a gambol through the genre jungle which samples everything, arranging the composite in a way that it sounds like nothing that’s gone before.

It is Asa Breed’s challenging, hidden quality which will intrigue most and have you return to it over and over.  The tracks are simple and haunting, impersonal and yet flooded with the artist’s self; the tone’s evocative and mysterious, revealing a level of artistry and reflection that aren’t commonly recognisable.

Lyrically the album does contain some curveballs: “My name doesn't change that often/But it's never been Don and Sherri,” or the repetition of the words “more work to be done” in the form of a bass line in ‘Will gravity win tonight?’ But the ambiguity is part of the charm of Dear’s album – you can’t tell if he’s happy, sad or cynical.  You never know, but the layers of depth keep you guessing, and the more times you listen the more these layers fall away, leaving the bones of the tracks exposed.

There are a few moments when Dear’s creativity seems to waver and the dream-like illusion woven by the album parts; tracks like ‘Deserter’ which lack the originality of the rest of the album. But these moments are truly rare.

This isn’t dance or house, not in the traditional sense, but the way the album builds and flows seems inspired by the greatest progressive works in those genres. It’s tempting to use the word pastiche, which implies and artwork created from pieces of other art, but this would belie the genuine originality and uniqueness of Dear’s music – his risky arrangements coming together flawlessly. One thing is certain, I’m never wearing my ‘I hate DJs’ t-shirt ever again.