Redhead

Matt Edwards goes by many names -- Matthew E, Rekid, Quiet Village, Sea Devils, Radio Slave -- and now you can also call him RedHead. Whereas under his various other guises he creates old-school acid house or electro-pop or disco, as RedHead he makes music that doesn't seem to care very much whether you're interested in dancing, though you can go ahead and try if you want to. "Continental Drift" is the most disinterested of the six very long tracks on this album; it sounds like a ship's mast creaking, with ocean waves, a ride cymbal, and a static but strangely urgent synth chord that sustains itself for the length of the track and, brilliantly, brings out the actual pitch of the creaking ship's mast. It's a very cool, but excessively long track. It's followed immediately by the funky, burbling groove of "Opening Ceremony (Fuse)," which is, oddly enough, saved from monotony by the sudden appearance of a Gregorian chant sample. "Leopard Skin" sounds like something Muslimgauze might have recorded after a visit to the Amazonian jungle; "Talking Dolls" blends an unassuming house beat with dubwise vocal snippets, and "Root People" blends a house beat with field recordings in a manner that brings to mind African Head Charge crossed with Jon Hassell. Only the grim and rather boring "Spell Bound" fails to cast much of a spell; everything else on this album is weirdly brilliant.