3 out of 5

Label: Rephlex

Produced by: Sherard Ingram (presumably)

Sherard Ingram – Urban Tribe – has some history in the scene to which my ears can’t attest, so all I can offer is what ‘Authorized Clinical Trials’ sounds like upon first spin.  And what I’d offer: classic early 90s-era Rephlex.  Which I guess is sorta’ modern Rephlex nowadays, as the past few years have seen them returning to more classic raw, housey records with those flourishes that would (referring to the 90s) develop into full-on IDM later on.  The current-day take on this is a bit more cleaned up and aware, of course, and that’s the role ‘Clinical’ slips into, the album name absolutely fitting the very mechanical, science-flavored sounds found on the disc.  (Science-flavored?)  Kicking off with ‘Polar Molecule,’ Ingram starts things on a somewhat poppier, perhaps lightly humorous note, carried through to the vocoder-vocals of ‘Biohazard.’  Mid-range tempos are played up and the disc revels in subtlety, letting a standard beat stutter in the foreground while other elements are masterfully diced up and interspersed in – such as the impressive beat breaks on ‘Mass’ – noticeable to your tapping toes but maybe not to a casual listen, which does enliven re-spins.  Things get a little darker right in the middle of the disc (‘Transcription,’ Amino acid sequence’), which are some of the more boring moments, lacking in layering, but it’s an effective way to transition to a run of slightly grimier, groovier tracks – ‘T Cell,’ ‘Phospholipid bilayer’ – which set the stage for a suddenly moodier, organic vibe for ‘RNA World’ and, especially, closer ‘Stop Codon.’  If you love that live sound of old school underground house but want something with a bit more complexity, a bit of story, ‘Authorized Clinical Trials’ is a solid deal, nabbing influences from an earlier era and funneling them through moder-day production mastery and know-how of keeping the listener invested.