Magnetophone The Man Who Ate The Man

Chances are you're not familiar with Magnétophone. I wasn't. Despite the continental moniker they actually hail from the distinctly un-Gallic Birmingham, and they haven't released an album since 2000, so they're not exactly prolific. However, this one's certainly worth an investigatory ear: past collaborators and admirers include the Static Brothers, Sonic Boom and JM Lapham of the Earlies, and this album features label-mates Kim and Kelley Deal, as well as HMS Ginafore, PG Six, King Creosote and James Yorkston.

Enough of the name-dropping then. Let's Start Something New begins proceedings, appropriately enough, with a cascade of what sounds like a Stylophone (this may be a fairly safe assumption, given their previous form), easing into an enveloping and swirling opener, before the old-timey synths are given a work-out on the beaty Kel's Vintage Thought, featuring the aforementioned Deals. There follows a veritable array of processed beauty, all backwards vocals, the occasional wash of distorted guitar and the encompassing, widescreen vision of a well-realised body of work. What Matt Huish Saunders and John Hanson have created here is an album that takes in so many different styles and techniques and genres, and yet manages to create a cohesive and eminently listenable whole. There's a touch of drum'n'bass on Benny's Insobriety, something approaching Four Tet's danceable (I hesitate to say it) IDM on Kel's..., a little experimentalism dropped delicately throughout, maybe see Rae And Suzette for reference (and fireworks), and some My Bloody Valentine guitars. Even Southern gospel makes an appearance in 'I've Been Looking Around Me'. No track sounds like another unless it's deliberate (for example, the synth sounds throughout the opener and the closing Let's Start Something Smooth, yet there's a charming flow throughout which ties up the album nicely.

I guess then, difficult to classify or pigeonhole, although as these things are a reviewer's wont, I'll have a go. Magnétophone certainly don't jar when compared to 4AD's illustrious past: the evocative soundscapes, the eerie otherworldiness of the Cocteau Twins maybe. And yet there's no one else quite like them on the label's roster, no one that takes such an eclectic approach to electronica. In fact, further afield there are few artists that tackle a genre approaching satiation with such aplomb. It's a satisfying and extremely competent album, and it's all too rare to be able to say that these days.