Kloq

“Move Forward”
Label: Out of Line
Official Website
(4.5/5)

Finally comes one album that has been on almost non-stop rotation in our house for the past few weeks. Kloq’s “Move Forward.” Kloq is a recent collaboration of Oz Morsley (from Empirion fame) and Douglas McCarthy from Nitzer Ebb on vocals.

While achieving pretty significant success with their track “Narcotic Influence” as well as some high profile remixes, I’ve always felt that Empirion were rather underappreciated, at least relative to the quality of their music. I often use the term electronica as general descriptor for a broad range of electronic music styles, but in its proper noun form, the term can be used to describe a specific style of 90′s electronic music that was too intelligent to be real dance music but still up-tempo and gripping. Empirion was probably the best example of this style, but there was a certain degree of darkness to their music that separated them from other purveyors of the style, i.e. Coldcut.Musically, Kloq strikes me as an updated and more refined representation of the heavily sequenced Empirion style. All around, the music is more powerful, harder hitting, more moving , and less anachronistic than Empirion. The real departure from the Empirion sound comes with the addition of Douglas McCarthy’s vocals. While not present on every track, the vocals bring some real added value. The combination of Morsley’s musical production and McCarthy’s vocals makes this album an instant classic.

As for noteworthy songs, I can’t stop listening to the instrumental track Ibiza, while the vocal and music combination seems best represented to me on tracks such as “Connecting “and “Move Forward. ” “KM1″ and “So Long Cylon” are straight throwbacks to the Empirion style. My sole complaint with this album is that I feel that the vocals on a few tracks aren’t as much of a perfect match as on the rest of the album. To me, the vocals on “You Never Know” are a bit too much Front 242 and the vocals on “We’re Just Physical” are a bit too much Manchester synthpop for my taste. That being said, this album will easily be an all time favorite for years to come.

Review by:
9000

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