Continental Ruins is a polished, highly listenable 62-minute effort that is, sadly, all too forgettable.
It's clear what Finland-based electronic music producer Samuel van Dijk — Multicast Dynamics, here — was aiming for. His media materials promise a "sound documentary about sunken cities and continents." Grandiosity aside, there are a few solid ideas here.
The clicks and squeaks throughout "Archive" are engaging and give the track a nice sense of depth. "Cryosphere" is a more dramatic piece, and as such packs an emotional punch that's lacking elsewhere on the album.
But piece after piece winds down to an unremarkable finish. It's like a series of electronic music experiments, none of which succeed completely.
This is van Dijk's fifth full-length release under the Multicast Dynamics moniker (all of them released since May 2015). He also performs as Mohlao and VC-118A. He's clearly a major talent, but perhaps he's fallen victim to his own prolificacy here. Continental Ruins won't be remembered as his high-water mark.
(Denovali)It's clear what Finland-based electronic music producer Samuel van Dijk — Multicast Dynamics, here — was aiming for. His media materials promise a "sound documentary about sunken cities and continents." Grandiosity aside, there are a few solid ideas here.
The clicks and squeaks throughout "Archive" are engaging and give the track a nice sense of depth. "Cryosphere" is a more dramatic piece, and as such packs an emotional punch that's lacking elsewhere on the album.
But piece after piece winds down to an unremarkable finish. It's like a series of electronic music experiments, none of which succeed completely.
This is van Dijk's fifth full-length release under the Multicast Dynamics moniker (all of them released since May 2015). He also performs as Mohlao and VC-118A. He's clearly a major talent, but perhaps he's fallen victim to his own prolificacy here. Continental Ruins won't be remembered as his high-water mark.
