Dance fans hoping for another club-stormer on the order of "Darn (Cold Way O Lovin')" may initially be disappointed by the second
Super_Collider full-length, though once it sinks in that this is in no sense a dance record (at least, not on this planet), it's easy to see
Raw Digits for what it is: an intriguing, individual work of art by two of the freakiest producers in electronica. One of the most distinctive sounds around hasn't changed too much; not that they worry about copyrights, since it's odds-on no one else could duplicate it. The beats, when they're around, are just as heavy as on
Head On, and
Jamie Lidell is still doing his paranoid funky-robot impression -- occasionally a dead-ringer for
Daryl Hall. And the effects, as before welded to a framework of no-stone-unturned breakbeat electro, are still unholy and completely unrecognizable, like a
Kid 606 remix of P-Funk trying to score Forbidden Planet. What's different is that
Raw Digits is even less a pop record than the first, much closer to the unhinged
Dark Magus clatter of Muddlin Gear,
Lidell's solo LP for Warp. Definitely not the
Pet Shop Boys then, but a real treat for those who hunger for a genuinely funky record with more ideas per second than
Autechre. ~ John Bush