Metamatics / Norken

Lee Anthony Jude Norris seems to take pleasure in obscurity. What else do you call a soft techno producer whose stuff has the kind of high-end quality that makes it perfect for hair and make-up commercials? Although not because of its marketability or soullessness but because advisors on advertising teams just think they’re that hip. The title implies a comfort with these kinds of analogies but the music shows a crafty knack for fucking shit up, opening with a sick re-visioning of "Personal Jesus.” The rest of the compilation is a retrospective mix put together from a pair of Norris’s monikers: Metamatics and Norken. He’s good enough not to warrant scoffing at for the Radiohead reference made by the PR firm behind the release. Who knows whether Colin picked up Norken’s Soul Static Bureau before or after "Idioteque” was laid, but whether the chicken hit before the egg is, in this case, irrelevant.