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Robert Hensley

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Robert Hensley's Album Reviews

"Music Has the Right to Children" (MHTRTC) is a haunting record; a depiction of decaying old technology. This can be heard in the excellent sample selection from the TV/radio station samples whizzing by in "Telephasic Workshop" to the creepy sesame street clips scattered throughout. The field recordings in tracks like "An Eagle in Your Mind" and "Happy Cycling" add a connection to nature, which clashes with the electronic aspects of the album. All of these aspects give an ethereal sense of nostalgia/déjà vu. As BOC producer Marcus Eoin described it:

"Then, around 1987 or 1988, we were beginning to experiment with collage tapes of demos we’d deliberately destroyed, to give the impression of chewed up library tapes that had been found in a field somewhere. That was the seed for the whole project. In those days, everyone used to have drawers full of unique cassettes with old snippets from radio and TV, it’s kind of a lost thing now, sadly. To me, it’s fascinating and precious to find some lost recordings in a cupboard, so part of it was an idea to create new music that really felt like an old familiar thing."

MHTRTC conjures up a pretty frightening and mysterious image. It's like a spiritual force combined a bunch of old audio clips to form a living, breathing entity. This is perhaps most evident on the "Sixtyten", with it's telltale-like, heart-thumping beat. But MHTRTC is more than just a spooky image. It's a pretty catchy IDM record thanks to the hypnotic percussion loops and echoing synths on top of the samples (ROYGBIV is a particular standout). And that's where MHTRTC really shines. It takes a neat advent-garde concept and makes it accessible, with many layers to discover on repeated listens. Definitely one of the best electronic albums of all time.
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