Back to Light

Tim Simenon must have been energized by his return to the record ranks with 2008's Future Chaos, because he went right back to work and emerged barely 18 months later with Back to Light. It's obvious from the beginning here that this isn't meant to be part two of Future Chaos, or just the left-behinds from that solid album. It's a vital record that charts a completely different direction, one that's less innovative and more mainstream than Future Chaos, but succeeds nonetheless because of its match of Simenon with ace techno producer Gui Boratto, whose work for Kompakt has made him one of the brightest tech-house producers of the 2000s. As on Future Chaos, most tracks have vocal features, with the usual benefits and drawbacks (on the plus side, the tracks get extra focus; on the minus side, they can lead to overly polished tracks that don't stand out). There's precious little here of the dub influence Simenon has usually carried, making it a strange Bomb the Bass record indeed. But with vocals from Kelley Polar and a featured co-production with Martin Gore (which far outpace the other appearances, from Richard Davis and Paul Conboy), plus Boratto's spacy, hypnotic techno as an underpinning, Back to Light isn't far off from Simenon's best.