Jansen / Barbieri & Karn deliver a beautiful instrumental mini-album which flickers and grooves. Seed is sexy in it's understatement and flow. It centres around a 12 minute revamp of Beginning To Melt. Hypnotic, glistening, it shows up most techno's paucity of imagination while simultaneously offering itself as an intro to 'Station To Station' in another dimension. I'm not crap enough to describe 'Seed' as "seminal" but there can be no doubt that all ex-members of Japan get moments of genius like the rest of us get free pizza leaflets through the letterbox.
Melody Maker
One of the things I hate is music with labels, especially the labels 'ambient' and 'new age'. To me, they conjure up images of people mucking about on their synths until they hear a wishy wash that reminds them of something from nature which is then given a title and called 'music'. No way - I'm not that easily fooled. Jansen, Barbieri and Karn haven't gone that route - they're established professionals, after all. But what you see on the front cover are computer generated images and on the reverse a list of just four tracks, all over the 3 minute pop-song length, so immediately you're led to believe that it's going to be a pile of ... But back to the point. This album is fantastic. It's concise, the tracks are contrasting, the musicianship is unquestionable, the sounds are inspiring and it's musical. In fact, if I was to be pretentious, I'd even describe it as 'art'. Many a home music programmer could do with studying this 27 minute album (just the right length to prevent things becoming boring). 'Beginning To Melt', the longest track at just over 11 minutes, starts off with a repetitive drum-machine rhythm and bass riff over which textures unfold. Various other synthy things happen until, at around seven minutes in, boredom threatens to creep in - but before you know it more new ideas are introduced. The track is rounded off with a 30-second coda which leaves you feeling that you've really experienced something substantial. 'In The Black Of Desire' contrasts with live drums, thick textures, sampled vocals and a hint at Indian scales. 'The Insect Tribe' shows off some beautiful velvety-smooth bass, plus a whole lot more. And the album concludes with 'Prey', a funkier number - a sort of 70's/90's juxtaposition. Wonderful stuff.
Keyboard Player
