Automatic Tasty The Future Is Not What It Used To Be
Automatic Tasty returns to the Central Processing Unit imprint for the first time in five years. Jonny Dillon has been a busy man since then with several long players and 12-inch singles under his belt, and he’s clearly saved a very special quartet for the Sheffield label.
The opening title track is the furthest CPU has ever explored the more commercial arm of electronic music, as this struts into the coolest spectrum of electro-led synthpop, all with a righteous confidence. Beautifully warm, vibrant and with a magnificent four-to-the-floor groove, this is one of the best things to come out of CPSmith’s stable so far.
‘Romance In The Old Country’ continues with the lush chords but this time there’s an unexpected pitch bend and a slightly drunken, hidden sound feeling to it – without a doubt this is a glorious reprise of the opening cut. ‘Rising Sun’ brings a rare sample to proceedings as Lyn Collins’ much-loved classic ‘Think’ provides a lively and skittish undertone to the corpus of new-school sounds. This never feels rushed, or overbearing – instead we are wrapped in the soft warm glow of electro.
To wrap things up the interestingly titled ‘Adventures In the World Of Becoming’ is a great finale to the record. Lots to reminisce on here from Plone to Xon to Boards of Canada – it’s like Tangerine Dream bought themselves an 808 and spent the day with Rob Gordon learning how to use it.
