You'll just have to imagine the typical introduction, illustrating evolution as a shaping factor in our lives, addressing its musical manifestation as suggested by this group's Darwinian name and album title. The outline would take shape through the idea of natural selection, with different genres like glitch and jungle occupying developmental niches in the survival of the fittest, and the eventual epochal shift when one lifeform incorporates all those traits. Let's cut to the chase: Posthuman have recorded an awesome album, one of the best IDM-oriented releases of 2001. All the more impressive that The Uncertainty of the Monkey is their debut, and the first record for their label Seed.
Little is known about the duo, but the music speaks for itself. "Jacson of Israel_Beautiful Beast" begins unsettlingly with demonic Blair-Witch-warbling while minimal synth winds stir the air and disturbingly artificial snares create tension by panning between the channels, regular and yet erratic. Then the hunt begins, a disorienting rush of metallic crashes and whooming bass that descends into increasingly complex Confields. Posthuman display more sonic range than Autechre, though, evidenced as the frantic animal cooings are caught up in an austere keyboard melody. A second, more subdued section of the song begins, and the elements slowly subtract themselves from the mix until the 10-minute opener concludes in orchestral ambience.
"15 Seconds to Get to Spain_Hogan" changes it up with mechanic hip-hop beats, funky as fuck, met by a searing synth stab harder than anything El-P cooked up on the Can Ox album last year. Posthuman have an uncanny knack for hiding mini-melodies amongst all the wobbly bass, and you can hear them on this track as a keyboard accent that lurked in the background gets looped over and over until it all ends in cycling claustrophobia. They play with a very raw sound palette, and so the digital sounds are far abstracted from any instrumental referents. Parts of their music imitate the jittering flow of Download, but without the emphasis on smacked-up house rhythms.
When the instruments do reveal their origins, as on "Quetzacotl_Grathard Debacle," it comes startlingly as a harsh acoustic guitar strum appears over the clicking mandible chatter and floating keyboards. So this isn't just a mélange of sounds thrown out at once-- each song has a highly narrative structure, like hunting for signs of organic life in Future Sound of London's Dead Cities. A hint of the human touch appears with the live version of this song on the last track. You can hear a generic trance groove faintly in the background, along with the duo fumbling at their decks and muttering back and forth. Then the actual song kicks in, another beat-driven symphony of squelch.
Thanks be to Posthuman, also, for putting the "dance" back in Intelligent Dance Music. "Plethora_Fagans Never Never" brings the funk with a litany of minimalist-techno breaks. Meanwhile, "Wednesday" stalks about the underbrush of booming bass and insectile glitch chirps, then catches the scent of a presumably Aphexian species. It pivots and transforms into a stomping electro number, acrid avid jam shredding in discombobulated fury. And "Wrongfuleyes" lures with prelude-to-the-afternoon-of-a-fawn calmness before morphing into a near-industrial anthem complete with dramatic keyboard vamps.
The Uncertainty of the Monkey is anything but hesitant. Posthuman's songs are overly confident, and their dark, spacious sound rises up from deep bass in the background, a resonant synthesizer midrange and crisp beatscapes in the fore. As a debut, this album sets an aggressive mood, but the cold atmosphere doesn't alienate-- instead, there's the draw of a certain predatorial sexuality. And in the deft combination of narrative structure, dense sonic texture and progressive rhythm, the duo have secured a place for themselves in IDM history. I wish there was more reconnaissance on them-- rumors abound about their affiliation with Skam Records and the bashes they host in London's Aldwych disused underground station. But if you follow the "secret" link on their homepage, you'll discover photos of the band and their mates, living it up in various flats and generally looking like they haven't a care in the world. It's a refreshing bit of humanity amongst all the cybernetic atmosphere, and the glimpse of a poster of Orbital's In Sides on a back wall reveals another trace of familial history.
