Russell Mills: Undark

I know I didn't buy this album when it first came out, but it can't have been that many years after, because I have the original version on Nottingham's em:t label (that's time spelt backwards and with creative punctuation, in case you hadn't noticed), rather than the more recent Bella Union re-issue.

I think the reason I was wary at first was that I had come across Russell Mills first as an illustrator (principally through the More Dark Than Shark book with Brian Eno), and after that in a collaboration with David Sylvian on Ember Glance, for which I assumed Mills' contribution to be mostly the packaging. Anyway, I must have read something that made me think this wariness was unwarranted.

The album is less ambient than I was expecting — perhaps it would be filed under Intelligent Dance Music (dance music that's a bit irregular, so you can't really dance to it, even though it mostly has a beat).

Mills assembled an impressive list of collaborators, from The Edge (when is he going to grow up and say, "just call me Dave"?) and two Enos to Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine. Nevertheless, the music hasn't yet made much of an impression on me.

MusicBrainz entry for this album