Simon Firth – Unknown Zone EP

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  • The first release for a new label should aim to leave a lasting impression, but I HART DIGITAL's initial offering might leave you without a solid opinion. The thing that Simon Firth's Unknown Zone EP does best, instead, is evoke a video game or sci-fi film's action sequence. Fluid and spacey, the title track has a rolling harpsichord atop synthetic sounds that could earn it a comparison to trance if the tempo weren't so slow. It's impossible to imagine that "Unknown Zone" was put together without a visual accompaniment. The problem, though, is that the first thing that comes to mind when listening to it is the video for Rank 1's "Airwave." More importantly, though, is the fact that the track full of echoed bleeps and groggy vibrations sounds incomplete, lacking a segment that jumps forth and grabs the listener in either the bedroom or in the club. "Spaced" is the saving grace, despite sounding like what might happen if Liam Howlett watched The Matrix while sifting through his unused Fat of the Land-era B-sides. Firth takes a risk here, wailing out the techno sirens at its breakdown, but it works. Blasted within concrete warehouse walls, it would entice glowsticks toward the heavens. Nonetheless, it doesn't have a hefty amount of cross-over appeal: Unknown Zone will probably be stellar for a select few, and a bit too interstellar for the rest of us.
  • Tracklist
      A Unknown Zone B Spaced
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