4 out of 5

Label: Rephlex

Producer: D’Arcangelo

One of the more misleadingly ‘smooth’ sounding Rephlex releases, D’Arcangelo’s Broken Toys’ Corner can groove all over ya’ for countless spins… and then you stop what you’re doing and tune in to a particular moment and realize that the brothers D’Arc are cutting shit up beneath that glossy stutter.  What makes this hard to miss is how well blended into both the album and individual tracks the experimentation goes: for every burbling ‘5005’ you get the immediate follow-up of ‘Chair Theme,’ which rolls blissfully along until boiling into intense snare rushes and beat breakdowns… while still maintaining its danceable exterior, mind you.  It’s not that the sound is brand new for the Rephlex stable, but the indirectness is unique, even compared to grandaddy Richard D. James, who might cover all bases but generally tends to do it one genre at a time.  There are still some more typical grooves on ‘Broken,’ – tracks without all the background flexing – averaging out to about every other song mining a fairly standard light-weight IDM burble.  This structure is plus/minus – the album flows beautifully, so I’m not exaggerating to say it can be left on eternal repeat, the slight tonal variations and an upbeat pace absolutely enough to keep awake and head-bobby.  It’s thus rewarding when you discover the hidden treasures, hearing the album with fresh ears, but it can result in those inbetween tracks then feeling just like that – inbetween tracks, pauses between ‘real’ music.  And that’s not fair, as each style of song is fully realized here.  It’s just hard to avoid, so surprising are the every-other moments that you get impatient when those elements are stripped away.  Finally, you relent to passive listening, and then it starts again – the music blends into a nice wave of peaceful burbles when suddenly a sound will catch you out…

Making ‘Broken Toys’ Corner’ quite an experience on several levels, functioning as background music and something to study; as a dancefloor chill-out and a perfect example of the creativity Rephlex encourages and allows.  While the one-layer-down bag-o-tricks can make you wish D’Arc would put out a disc fully devoted to that sound, it’s nice to have an electronic album that has a flexible mood, both aggressive and relaxed.  Such a moldable nature generally isn’t found in the world of bips and beeps.