Alex Smoke Paradolia

• Words: David Hemingway
• Label: Soma
• XLR8R Rating: /10

Paradolia is the phenomenon of finding familiar images in random scenes, like faces in clouds or religious icons in root vegetables. By a comparable process, it's easy to pick out familiar motifs in Alex Menzies' music-making; throughout Paradolia, trace elements of other music released in the last 24 months or so on labels like Kompakt, Traum, Get Physical, Border Community, and, most pronouncedly, Ghostly International (via Matthew Dear's melodic, song-based techno) seem to teem from the speakers. Nevertheless, on the follow-up to Incommunicado, Menzies transcends mere homage; by surveying the micro-and electro-house scenes of 2004-05, he produces an album that might be among the more loveable of 2006.