Xylitol: Anemones (Planet Mu Records)
I've checked the dictionary. Xylitol is a real thing. It's a sugar alcohol that you get inside the fibres of fruit and veg. I'm not a scientist, but I think it means if you lick a plum for six months, you'll get slightly tipsy. With that in mind, I'm expecting this album to be sugary sweet, like bubble gum pop or something
Oh. Heck. The moment the first squashed breakbeat slices into your ears tells you this is no pop album. We're in the frenetic world of Venetian Snares, Squarepusher and Aphex Twin. Slav To The Rhythm show co-host Catherine Backhouse is bringing it hard with her Xylitol persona.
Rosi sounds like a Nintendo game that's been imported into Microsoft Paint. Moebius is jungle caught in a hallucinogenic haze. Jelena is a masterpiece: breathless breaks hardly hold it together as they eddy over an undercurrent of depressive synth washes.
If you're familiar with Planet Mu, and indeed anything inspired by jungle, then you're already familiar with this sound. But it's masterfully controlled by Backhouse. It's rare to hear an album so mechanical yet so charming.
Hat doff to Planet Mu for continuing to absolutely fricking nail it. A final thought: Apparently if you take too much Xylitol, you get webbed toes. You don't know that for a fact. I don't know that for a fact. But I've blogged that now, so it's definitely true.
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