Kid 606 - The Illness EP
[Tigerbeat6]

Beautifully produced 5-track taster for the forthcoming album, as ever, the cuts are fairly mashed up and eclectic. The title track is a 7-minute techno odyssey with hip-hop and drum and bass also thrown into the mix. Fast, frantic and insanely catchy, hell, there's even a Road Runner sample in there. Nice use of hard beats too.

'Evasion' is the lead track, touching on the use of static and minimalism that ran through his sublime 'PS I Love You Album', this is a finer moment of clicks 'n' cuts which is painfully too short. The happy hardcore inspired 'Ecstasy' is just plain annoying, someone should tell him comedy and good music rarely go hand in hand. As with a fair number of Kid 606 tracks, 'Circumvent' is a tuneless, mumbly affair, which leads to nothing. The token Tigerbeat number 'Maybe', is thrown in with its with mashed up beats, squelches and a lot of distorted noise - there's too many tracks like this, he really needs to develop further.

It's a shame the Kid spends too much time these days still toying with sounds and effects as opposed to creating anything half decent, although it seems to have done no damage to his career. The title track and 'Evasion' are positive indications of what's to come for the future, and it's a rosy one.