Minotaur Shock

Maritime

BY Cam LindsayPublished Jul 1, 2005

Having remixed the likes of Badly Drawn Boy, Super Furry Animals and Bloc Party, David Edwards, aka Minotaur Shock, has taken a slight detour on his second full-length album. While he sat comfortably in the fields of folktronica with his debut, Maritime is a much more perplexing creation keen to move forward away from the pigeonholing. The electronic facet is still the heart of the music, but Edwards has thrown a mixed bag of instrumentation and genre meddling into his scope. Absent of vocals, which isn’t as detrimental as one might think, Maritime’s charm is in its warm melodies and enthusiastic quirks. "Six Foolish Fishermen” is a polite head-nodder that has an almost childlike amiability to it, while "Muesli” boasts enough personality to soundtrack a Pingu episode. Edwards’s talents though are best captured in his brush with gentle soundscapes. "Somebody Told Me It Once Existed But They Never Found It” splices up bits of folk and pastes them in a flowery cinematic medley. "Vigo Bay,” his most ambitious number, presents the album’s strongest emotions with an affectionate melody courtesy of a tender synth and sad guitars that are lifted by some nicely placed glitches. Maritime is a peaceful and inspiring work of art that is in an exclusive league of its own.
(4AD)

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