marumari supermogadon press
urb - jan/feb 2002 -URB's top 20 records of 2001
were he older, balding, paranoid and not from rhode island, marumari's josh presseisen would be dr. alex patterson: supermogadon is every bit as trippy, vocal-laden, grooving and pot-sounding as the orb's adventures beyond the ultraworld. presseisen's fourth marumari album floats effortlessly through fleshy, melodic techno, downtempo, ambient groove, electro hybrids and dubby funk like kites through the air on a lazy sunday afternoon.
- heath k. hignight
most times we pop in CDs, we're prepared to leave where we are for a while. That's what music does -- it helps us escape, to leave wherever we are and whatever we're doing for a while. It's an aural getaway to far-off destinations. But these places Marumari wants to take us, they're not in most of the travel brochures.
If you had to put Marumari with a group of peers, he'd most likely fit with the unfortunately genrefied purveyors of organic-electronic bliss like Aphex Twin, Mu-Ziq, Autechre, Junior Varsity km and even Plaid. The atmospherics fit, but none of these peers match Marumari's ability to give life to lifeless sounds and to make such digitally enhanced music sound so organic. That's not to say he's better than anyone in this group, but he's certainly doing his own thing.
Put in Supermogadon, the fourth release from Rhode Island's Josh Presseinen, and expect to see things with your ears that you don't usually see: rolling dunes, arctic drifts, stalagmites, the ocean floor in deep water, the vacuum of space as it looks from the capsule of a rocket. They're places that are foreign not only to our general patterns of civilization, but also to our laws of living. They have no air, or no gravity, or no form, or no heat, or no cold, or no light, or none of the above. The images come to us like fever dreams: edgeless environments that close in all around us while we're too delirious to care. It's how music sounds when you're not listening, which Presseinen proves can be much better than when you are listening.
Supermogadon gets by on this kind of distance. You hear guitars, but only as if they were on the other side of a wall. You hear melodies, but only as if they were wind chimes on the front porch. You hear a bass line, but only as if it were an electric blanket when there's a blizzard outside. This music isn't a workout, it's a massage.
And as barren and alien as it may sound, Supermogadon is nothing if not familiar. Right from the start -- "Rocket Summer", an ignition sequence that gives way to a slow-mo liftoff into super-deep end fuzz -- the melodies sound like something you've heard before. On "Rocket Summer", it could be a new wave song. On "Indigo Florist", it could be a nursery rhyme, or maybe a teen ballad. On "The Mutated Wisdom", it could be disco revival interpreted by a Casio keyboard. You never can tell because Presseinen has recreated them into something that only remotely resembles its source. It's plastic music: use it, recycle it, use it again -- it's going to be different every time, but it's always going to be plastic.
And like plastic, you'll be hard-pressed to find any sharp edges. The low, middle and high ends of songs like "Red" blend seamlessly. The blissful hum of "Put Me in My Habitrail" plays off the loopy melody like a chorus with no voices over an organ with no pipes. Back on "Indigo Florist", the same satin chorus intertwines with an actual voice that sounds as if it's being muted by a hand over the speaker, and about halfway through the track it muffles into oblivion before the hand is removed and, for one of the only times on the album, there's some distinction between sounds.
A friend once said about the musical juxtaposition of Mu-ziq, "This is what it sounds like inside my head". It was a perfect description, one that accounted for the constant conflict of form and function that goes on behind the eyes. As for Marumari, Supermogadon doesn't have those conflicts. It's not quite as conscious an endeavor. In fact, it's not conscious at all. Supermogadon is what it sounds like right before you fall asleep, when you're so relaxed that you're not sure what's reality and what's a dream -- and the difference between the two doesn't matter anyway.
-shan fowler
kinetic magazine - 6 november, 2001
- Kevin Rourke
roudhouse.gr - july 2001
Με ανυπομονησία περίμενα τη νέα δουλειά του Marumari και δεν απογοητεύθηκα καθόλου. Εδώ έχουμε να κάνουμε με την τέταρτη μεγάλη του κυκλοφορία και κοιτώντας το πόσο νέος είναι, αναρωτιέμαι “πότε πρόλαβε;”.
Τα αφήνουμε στην άκρη όλα αυτά τα βασανιστικά (zzz…) ερωτήματα και περνάμε στη μουσική του που οι λάτρεις της ευρύτερης electronica πραγματικά θα λατρέψουν. Καιρός είναι ο νεαρός από το New England να κάνει το μεγάλο βήμα και αυτό δεν φαίνεται να αργεί μιας και ήδη πολλοί άνθρωποι από την Ευρώπη αρχίζουν να τον ανακαλύπτουν ενώ και οι γνωστοί To Rococo Rot του ζήτησαν να είναι support στις περιοδείες τους.
Smooth jazz, samples, ρυθμοί και λούπια, drum n base, dance και επιρροές από Plaid αλλά και Dj Cam. Πολύ καλό και κυρίως αυθεντικό. Φαντάζομαι θα ακούσουμε πολλά από αυτόν στο σύντομο μέλλον αρκεί να απαγκιστρωθεί από τη νεκρή φάση που περνάει η αμερικάνικη electronica σκηνή τελευταία. Πάντως από την Carpark records έχει αναδειχθεί και ο KID 606 , κάτι που τουλάχιστον μας γεμίζει με ελπίδες για το μέλλον του Marumari.
Artwork:
7/10
O ίδιος ο Marumari
έχει
επιμεληθεί το
artwork και
αποδεικνύει
ότι εκτός από
καλός μουσικός
είναι και καλός
γραφίστας.
Άλλωστε
ετοιμάζει
αρκετές
εκπλήξεις στο site
της Carpark records αλλά και
στο δικό του.
Informativos.net – oct 21 2001
La música de MARUMARI, de quienes hemos reseñado aquí sus dos anteriores trabajos en Carpark ("Ballad Of The Round Ball" y "The Wolves Hollow"), parece la metáfora de un sueño donde convive espacio, misticismo y diversión. A veces demasiado evidentes, incluso juguetones ("The mutated wisdom"), otros inquietos, lo cierto es que MARUMARI está construyendo un mundo melódico donde cada vez caben más variantes (jazz, pop, ambient) engullidas por su electrónica de dormitorio. Temas como "Baby m" lo tienen todo: fascinación pop y deconstruccionismo, un lado fácil que embelesa y un lado oscuro que lo complica todo.
Obviando el discurso metafísico que acompaña a cada uno de sus discos, “Supermogadon” no deja de ser un magnífico disco de pop futurista y a la vez un excelente disco de electrónica bella, contemporánea, un bálsamo digital al que es fácil arrimarse, como si Oval acudieran al club del pop europeo o Autechre hicieran poemarios menos crudos. Evidentemente, no es un creador indispensable ni magistral, pero la obra electrónica de MARUMARI tiene bien asentada sus bases con este bonito cuarto disco.
- jesus castillo
pitchforkmedia.com - september 28, 2001
To this day, technology still has yet to approach an accurate approximation of nature. High-end CGI animations may elicit "ooh's" and "aah's" from us now, but in a few years, we're going to look back at something like the Final Fantasy movie and just laugh, the same way we currently laugh at an outdated special effects extravaganza like King Kong.
Still, there's something oddly cool and impressive about a movie like King Kong, or even a more recent laughable special effects wankathon like Starship Troopers. It seems to be woven into the fabric of the human mind to be impressed, or at least entertained, by any kind of artificial reality that is at all analogous to our own.
This principle extends perfectly into the realm of electronic music, where the quest for new and interesting sounds and the quest to electronically emulate organic sounds intermingle with concurrently fascinating and wildly entertaining results. Good electronic music provides the excitement of hearing a sound that you've possibly never heard before, and the fun of being able to try to figure out what that sound's sources was.
Supermogadon, the latest album from Josh Presseisen under his Marumari alias, wonderfully captures the intriguing synthetic façade of sci-fi. But whereas its predecessor, The Wolves Hollow, was oftentimes outright cheesy and cartoonish, Supermogadon is much more subtle and subdued. The Wolves Hollow drew its inspiration from a fictitious story of Plutonian wolves and cow brains; Supermogadon draws its inspiration from Ray Bradbury's The Martian Chronicles, converting chapter titles to song titles and co-opting cover art.
Like The Wolves Hollow before it, Supermogadon takes a wonderfully warped approach to the futuristically fake. Barely audible vocal tracks are buried beneath drum machine beats and bubbly synthesizers. "Indigo Florist," the album's standout track, layers synthesized bells with staticky drum machines and bouncy bass synthesizer. The song retains a relatively constant feel as new elements are added and removed, making for a subtle, gradual development. Sure, it doesn't necessarily reach through your headphones into your ears and violently shake its contents like a British nanny, but it certainly captivates when given proper attention.
Another highlight comes with "The Mutated Wisdom," a song that harbors many more twists and turns than most of the tracks on Supermogadon. A dissonant chorus of voice-like keyboards, a popping IDM beat, and sine wave synthesizers construct a clearly-defined rhythmic and melodic skeleton. Digitally manipulated squeaks scurry over the song like extraterrestrial rodents as a smooth drum machine beat shifts the track's rhythmic focus. At the end, everything fades out except for a distant echo of a synthesizer, which also quickly disappears.
Indeed, distance seems to be a sonic theme of Supermogadon. Most of the melodies on the album are obscured and faded-- a drop in aural resolution that causes many of the sounds on the album to bleed together into a far-off, semi-terrestrial sonic landscape. Occasionally, the very prominent drum machines seem a bit forced or obvious, only distracting from the intricacy of the more obscured melodic workings. Rather than making the subtle sounds seem more accessible, oftentimes the drum machine beats on Supermogadon have the opposite effect, contrasting the other sounds too harshly to let them shine through.
I'll concede that I've never read The Martian Chronicles. Nor have I seen the 1980 USA Miniseries adaptation with Bernadette Peters and Rock Hudson. But from what I've heard of Bradbury's classic, the sense of obscured unreality found on Supermogadon makes perfect sense. Using music instead of language, Pressiesen can convey this feeling in an instant, rather than fifty pages. Like a book, though, Supermogadon demands a significant portion of your attention to be fully appreciated.
-Matt LeMay, rating: 7.8
XLR8R - #52 – september 2001
To quote harris K. tellemacher: wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful!" marumari’s been buiding up for supermogadon since 1999, with ballad of the round ball and the wolves hollow (both on carpark) hinting delicately if sporadically at the shimmering synth-pop essences that make the introductory "rocket summer," "yita," "baby M," and "indigo florist" an emotional story unto itself. Situated within the whole of supermogadon, however, are techno vignettes ("way in the middle of the air"), downtempo love odes ("holograft") and classic IDM epics ("the mutated wisdom"), each delicately assembled like a dozen faberge eggs. Easily as dense as his previous releases, supermogadon thankfully sees this bright american electronic star balance the whole lot with aplomb.
- heath k. hignight
Creative loafing atlanta – august 2001
There are generally two types of electronic musicians these days: those who treat machines like they can express something human, and those who treat machines expressly inhumane. As laptop punk gains popularity, it will mirror the late '70s -- there will be more abuse than use of instruments.
But for every digital terrorist like Aphex Twin, Kid606 and V/VM, whom you have to admire just for the sheer virtuosity with which they fuck shit up, there will one day hopefully be at least one Jake Mandell, Neutral, Plastiq Phantom or Marumari.
Rhode Island's Marumari is a computer animator by day, and you c
an feel it in his gentle, wispy songs. You can almost imagine a cherubic cartoon train puffing little rings of smoke from side to side as it snakes through the windswept, open plateau of Marumari's fantasia. Supermogadon rains radiance, rays of new wave and new-age synths showering the thin basslines and clicking freshly cut underbrush in a warm glow. It's melody and machinery, living together in perfect harmony. It's bubbly. It's refreshing. It tickles your nose. It's pop, plain and simple.
Supermogadon features just enough of the skitter and shuffle of "traditional" Intelligent Dance Music that IDM fans won't feel the need to retreat to their well-worn Front 242 records to recharge, but the majority of the album is left open for Marumari to embrace ambience. Nowhere does the tempo rage to the scuffing pace of many of Marumari's contemporaries. Supermogadon instead envisions a harmonious alien world of the future, and what a bright future it is.
- tony ware
Voir - Montreal 9 août 2001
Grand copain de Kid 606 (voir critique ci-bas), Josh Presseisen, alias
Marumari, s'avère pourtant beaucoup plus ludique que ce dernier. La musique
de Supermogadon (pseudo-album concept axé sur une étrange race
d'extraterrestres) mélange allègrement le glitch et le kitsch, les
explorations sonores très détaillées et les références pas toujours
subtiles
à la culture pop des années 80. En fait, Supermogadon ressemble à la musique
qu'aurait pu créer cette race d'aliens en provenance de la planète Agralope
(que vous pouvez découvrir dans son vidéo; l'homme fait aussi du design 3D)
si elle avait synthétisé et reconstitué des fragments d'ondes télé et radio
captées entre 82 et 86. Bref, de la musique de laptop pas banale et surtout
fort divertissante. À voir au Jingxi, le 13 août, avec le Montréalais Jetone
et en septembre, en première partie de To Rococo Rot. * * * *
- Nicolas Tittley
Austin american statesman – august 2, 2001
Marumari's Josh Presseisen has spent the last two years making a name for himself in the electronic underground, releasing two well-received albums of mellow yet dense listening music. Since the time of his first recording -- a track for Austin-based Mad Monkey Records' "Enter The Monkey" compilation -- the sound of Marumari has moved from rudimentary harmonies and ambient droning to complex multi-part melodies, reminiscent of the kind of synthesizer music that began to appear in the late '70s and carried on well into the '80s. Think Vangelis' "Chariots of Fire" sound- track, Brian Eno's early ambient works and, on the dancier end of things, the New Order and Duran Duran tunes that always found a place in John Hughes movies. Now, on "Supermogadon," Presseisen has processed those occasionally shticky melodies to death, freeing the sounds of "Sixteen Candles" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" from pop-culture washout.
In fact, "Supermogadon" is like a soundtrack itself: one to a warm, pleasant dream of some futuristic summer. "Way Up In the Air," with its techno throb and streaks of harmonized synthesizer wavering about, is the sound that accompanies kids darting across a sun-kissed field; "Indigo Florist" 's interplay of quick electro percussion over a shimmering bell-like theme captures the awe in a child's eyes the first time she inspects an orchid. In similar pseudo-cinematic fashion, the down-tempo "Baby M" twists pop music samples into something dark, like a group of teens getting lost in the woods as the sun sets, while "A Green Morning" reassures them that the path back home isn't too hard to find. Coming to the end of "Supermogadon" is like the morning after a good night's sleep; you feel a bit sad that the beauty has ceased flowing from your mind's speakers.
-- heath k. hignight
Montreal
Mirror - August 2, 2001
Here, try this. Fill a mason jar with lemon juice, wombat milk, Sea Monkeys,
Magic Rocks, cough syrup, Colecovision cartridge chips, Spanish Fly, a
luminous deep-sea jellyfish, Linda Evans' legwarmer sweat, a Tamagochi or
two and a fistful of fuzzy caterpillars. Then let it sit in a dank corner of
the basement for a month, before shaking it up and popping it open. What do
you get? A hideous putrescence so vile the fumes knock you down like a
Taser. That was stupid! When you come to, apologize to yourself by
purchasing this exceptional chunk of left-handed hermit-tronica from the
lonely laptop of NYC's Josh Presseisen. Weird, beautiful, deeply
idiosyncratic--and bacteria-free! 8.5/10
- Rupert Bottenberg
lotus – (august 2001)
beautiful and inspired things emanate from the mind of marumari, and this CD is living proof. Lush and playful, supermogadon is a sanctuary where future ancients drift music to our ears from across time. a strange and categorically unique album that wafts hints of my bloody valentine in the form of tonal noises superimposed over the framework of marumari’s kind-hearted songs. Rich with melodious lines, yet simultaneously lo-fi on the edges, tracks like "baby M" and "the mutated wisdom" swirl from head to toe with pop charm.
- erik alwill
weekly dig – 7.25.01
the title of this latest full-length from recent providence transplant josh presseisen may conjure up images of distant alien landscapes, but it’s anything but cold and icy. indeed, the music is like a soundtrack to a summer vacation on mars somehow filtered through seventies-era lite rock. from the lunar landing opening track, "rocket summer," presseisen evokes slightly fractured images of summer's past. This sets the tone for the record as a whole, as marumari draws on both the breezy joys of easy listening and the electro-inspired futurism of IDM. He creates beautiful, lush music that wavers and quivers, recalling shimmering sunlight, or, perhaps, the hazinesss of memory. Presseisen’s work has always been richly melodic and emotionally evocative, but on supermogadon, he works with more overt pop structures than on earlier releases, such as ballad of the round ball and the wolves hollow. As in the past, marumari’s music bears more than a passing resemblance to iaora tahiti-era mouse on mars, which is by no means a bad thing. As a whole, it’s more relaxed than marumari’s earlier work, although it occasionally shifts into higher gear on tracks like "way in the middle of the air" and the slippery funk of "holograft" to ward off any poolside malaise. At last, this year’s IDM record of the summer: perfect for chilling at the beach or cruising in that imaginary convertible with the top down.
- susanna bolle
vibrations – august 2001
l’univers de marumari, s’il rivalise de naivete avec de salui ryan et saville, apparait nettement plus complex et neanmoins tout aussi pop. la musique de josh presseisen s’inscrit dans une esthetique melangeant a loisir le post-hippie et les contes pour enfants sur un mode hyperrealiste. "supermogadon" evoque les annees 80 par des sons et des voix essentiellement feminines qui renforcent les couleurs criardes de ses melodies. pour resumer: le petit chaperon rouge va dans l’espace et finit en discotheque.
- christophe taupin
bizarre – august 2001
splishy beats, lush tones, a sound full of optimism and futuristic joy. a fantastic journey to alien worlds where the jazz of the star wars cantina has been progressed by digital manipulation – christ, for all we know it’s probably far more astral techniques, far more sophisticated technologies. whatever marumari have discovered on their space journeys it makes peaceful, tranquilized sounds.
the wire – august 2001
more encrypted messages and blissful alien vibes from the planet agralope, relayed to earth via rhode island’s interstellar explorer marumari. this fourth communication, his third for carpark, has a breezy warmth and shimmer, infused with the subtle play of easy electronic currents and fresh harmonic structures. marumari’s musical world is complex, playful and extremely assured. but it does not readily give up its secrets. Indeed, the peaceful inhabitants of agralope pictured on cover have no sensory apertures other than a pair of golden eyes set in their featureless red faces. presumably, this doesn’t inhibit their enjoyment of the finest summer listening this galaxy has witnessed in aeons.
iD - (august 2001) - and...relax! what else from an album called "supermogadon"? mysterious nyc laptop geezer imagines utopian outer space as a pastoral astral plane and pixelises it into digital rivers of melody and muted '80s synth basslines. minimum harsh glitch. maximum orbs of brain massaging pulses. buy in bulk.
dj - (july 14th-26th)
marumari proves originality doesn't have to be awkward; it can be deep and warm. smooth grooves and lush textures make this accessible, but wayward elements blur in and out of the picture and play with your perception. it's a chilled, challenging, mutating entity that glides rather than jolts you through its inventiveness, and what's more it has "summer" written all over it. it's not house, techno, hip-hop, electronica, or avant-garde, though it's probably informed a little by all of them. the only let down is that when marumari moves onto conventional electronica terrain he sounds a little dated. overall, though, this leaves one hell of a warm glow.
- gal detourn
grooves - #6
Marumari’s fourth record is the thinking man’s summertime jam of the year, taking the crystalline melodies and distinctively tweaked samples of his previous work and locking them down with just the right amount of R&B style beat. Marumari’s beat work is now much more energetic and aggressive than previously, and lends just the right contrast to his palette of deep bass, gurgles n’ clicks, and wisps of female vocals. Songs like "The Golden People" illustrate how this new dedication to the beat helps plant the feet of Marumari’s ethereal music on solid, danceable earth, with a beat that surges and fades like the tide supporting a delicate mix of understated synth melodies and gleaming vocal fragments.
It’s apparent from the sound of Supermogadon that Marumari loves music for music’s sake, and that every track is crafted to reflect a specific memory or emotion, which stands in stark contrast to the wealth of music being made now that reflect only the software use to create it. At its best, Supermogadon is a worthy successor to the original Artificial Intelligence era sound, neither ignorant of nor opposed to the harshy, glitchy sound that has developed since, but absorbing elements of that music as well as psychedelia and modern R&B into a bright, contemplative mix all Marumari’s own.
-rob geary
vice (july 2001)
NYC is also home to Carpark, a young label quickly establishing itself as a musical force to be reckoned with. with the release of "supermogadon" (Carpark) the 3rd cd by marumari (my favorite artist on the label), carpark¹s rep grows stronger by the minute. chosen to support to rococo rot on a US tour, marumari takes the best of minimal techno, experimental breaks and DSP tomfoolery and drops a playful and engaging record."
-raf
Muzik – august 2001
marumari’s releases – often accompanied by fanciful works of explanatory fiction - are steadily increasing in scope and ambition. given the appropriate budget he could probably come up with something as grandiose and, dare we say, preposterous as air’s "10000 hz". another decade and he’ll be doing 2001: a space odyssey on ice, with real aliens and gorillas. pulp sc-fi prog electronica – in a good way.
- tom mugridge 3/5
alternative press - august 2001
"Supermogadon"
is a rare thing: a CD that manages to be challenging, original, and accessible at the same time. A sunny tunefulness pervades
these tracks allowing the dsp trickery to worm it's way into your psyche by stealth.
Marumari reverses the process employed by today's laptop terrorists: the tracks start out sounding familiar and
reassuring, but repeated listening reveals a deep current of weirdness just below the smiling surface. The sampled and manipulated
human voice is at the root of many of the sounds -- twisted, looped, and stuttered, like conversation
overheard and half understood. This is cutting edge electronica for listeners tired of being jabbed in
the ear with a sharp stick.
- kent williams 4/5
TANDEM
NEWS (Toronto) - July 15, 2001
You probably won’t read about this in their newspaper but the Now Lounge (189 Church St.) hosts a cool emerging artist, Marumari, on Sunday July
15th. Josh Presseisen from Providence, Rhode Island, is the man behind the Polynesian
name, but his music isn’t a World flavour, rather a sleek, subdued techno to match his science fiction imagery. Like a softer, sexier
Severed Heads, Presseisen’s fourth full-length (his third for New York’s Carpark label) glides through lush melodic scenery populated with soothing
manipulated voices like some kind of outer space sirens. Techno, hip hop and lo fi drum machine beats
alternate the transport of the voices’ surreal messages, finding new digital dream
spaces in tracks like the alien b-boy trip "Rocket Summer."
- Chris Twomey
other music - july 11, 2001
The splendid world of the North American Electronic Undergound is populated by carefree characters. Many have well-paying day jobs, girlfriends (or boyfriends) and houses with balconies. Most make their music at night, headphones snug, mouse well in hand. It's an idyllic cyber-community where everyone uploads their latest melodic, squooshy creatures for others to manipulate as they see fit. Marumari is the quintessential NAEU member. An animator by day, bubbly composer by night, Marumari has a well-designed web site, hundreds of attractive fans and a knack for making beautiful, spacious and melodic music. Electronic pieces with titles like 'Indigo Florist,' 'The Golden People' and 'Super Botany.' Hailing from the rock monster of Providence, home to Fort Thunder and Load Records, Marumari chooses instead to minimize and simplify. He twists and turns beat patterns, then adds Tron-like effects, phasing them in and out. Simple sonic sculptures reveal themselves then retreat. There's nothing revolutionary here, no sinewave massacre, no roaring compression, but that is beside the point. NAEU is all about evolution; the slow morph of ideas into art, and the open exchange of intellectual property. "Supermogadon" is calming techno to help you weather the Martian dust storms.
-david day
De-bug
– may 2001
Marumari und kein Ende. Denkt sich auch Marumari und macht sein drittes Carpark-Album
fertig, das ungefähr da weiter macht, vor die Wölfe im letzten Jahr aufhörten
zu heulen. Kleine, total over-the-top Popjams, die ungefähr 18.000 Ideen pro
Sekunde raussprudeln. Alle Tracks bouncen in der berühmt-berüchtigten
Marumari-Tonart, irgendwie vertraut, aber definitiv nicht nachspielbar,
irgendwie zum mitsingen gemacht, aber gleichzeitig so anders und kaputt, dass es
da nicht zum summen gibt. Auf jeden Fall kickt und scheppert alles wie immer.
Wann machen Platten schon mal Spass? Das kann gut und gerne noch ein paar
Jahrzehnte so weiter gehen, ich hab nichts dagegen. Hier hat jemand sein eigenes
Genre erfunden.
-thaddi ****
The
wild chirp
RIYL: Autechre, µ-ziq
I wasn't so hot on the first Marumari CD, but he's turned out to be an artist to
watch! Frequent use of fractured vocal samples livens up this very listenable,
melody-centered album. One of the more sonically rich and complex CDs I've heard
in this sonically rich and complex style of music.
-al ritchie 8/10
wax – august 2001
marumari is one of the most promising artists to emerge from the US electronica scene, and last year’s "wolves hollow" album was one of the finest examples of the genre to date. if you haven’t already got it, buy it now. that’s why this comes as a little bit of a disappointment. whilst "supermogadon" is way out in front of the pack in terms of production techniques, it is frequently overcomplicated and indeed a little too clever for its own good with many of the tracks delivering mind-bending audio, at the expense of musicality. nevertheless, there are flashes of genius here too: if you’re in any doubt check the unbelievable "way in the middle of the air" with its warm, alien bassline. quality stuff, but this guy is capable of better.
- tony cooper 8