When the drums and vocals kicked in after thirty seconds on the opening song, “Ancientface,” I realized I was going to be engaged in a great album. Cedar Apffel and Rory O'Connor, both members of one of Brooklyn’s best music projects, Natureboy, have teamed up and put out a gem of an electronica record called Freedom Tower under the name Masterface.
The band uses layered guitar loops, beautiful keyboard arrangements, and reserved but explosive drumbeats and a real understanding of the use of dynamics. The music also embraces some dub grooves and DJ-style trance effects, which really let the songs swell and crescendo. Masterface delivers an abundance of well-orchestrated hypnotic trance grooves with very tight and polished production and a plethora of textures that keep unfolding with each listen.
Cedar’s vocals at times remind me of Chris Keating of Yeasayer layered in a mask of vocoder effects. The music has an apocalyptic feel juxtaposed within a beautiful calmness. Freedom Tower is well crafted with a nice organic cadence and plays very well as a whole with lots of different song styles nicely meshed together. My favorite tracks are “Excuse Me Girl,” “Ancientface,” and “Magic Dragging,” but the songs are best listened to in the order presented on the album.
I used to be really into electronic music such as early Air, Four Tet, Prefuse 73, Thievery Corporation, Massive Attack, and many others but over the last few years haven’t been too excited about any releases until now. I was missing a good electronic record. Masterface have brought back the excitement on this debut. After a long, hard day, some might enjoy a stiff cocktail or nurse a tall imported beer or smoke some controlled substance to unwind. This album can help you hit the reset button on its own, but complemented by a choice off the aforementioned menu, it can surely help you do a low-level reformatting of your mental hard drive while soothing your soul. I highly recommend Masterface to any fan of electronic music. |