Six Soviet Misfits

Six Soviet Misfits compiles two years of Icarus releases onto two compact discs. Disc one collects the UL-6 and Soviet Igloo EPs. Disc two holds the entirety of 2002's Misfits. What becomes clear over the course of the two discs is that Ollie Bown and Sam Britton are comfortable mining two musical genres: the jazzy, skittering drum'n'bass associated with Amon Tobin and Squarepusher, and the mournful clicks + cuts new-millennium IDM made popular by Morr Music and Kompakt artists. Indeed, the material from Misfits sees Icarus as a kind of missing link between Squarepusher and Múm, as drum'n'bass clattering blends effortlessly with sweet brittle ambient tones. Friends Dan Snaith (aka Manitoba) and Kieran Hebden (aka Four Tet) should be credited with getting a buzz started for the duo, as they name checked Icarus repeatedly in the music press around the time of this collection's release. Hebden in particular praised Icarus as some of the finest purveyors of electronic music. That Six Soviet Misfits fails to prove Hebden's hype should be obvious, with endless noodling and groove surfing cropping up far too frequently, but Icarus do enough things right to take a solid position among their peers. They know their way around techno noir atmosphere, to be sure. Six Soviet Misfits is far from groundbreaking, definitely less than essential, but still a mostly interesting mix of two electronic genres. Britton and Bown are just a couple spoonfuls of innovation short.