:: The Blue Hour Vol. 3: Deep Blue

Andy Rantzen

Half of the brilliant Itch-e & Scratch-e team, Andy Rantzen's music is described, in the press release, as “cool-but-intense, highly sensate, moody electro-funk” and that just about sums it up really. Post-modernist trippy might also cover it, and considering that Rantzen has lectured in psychology and the history and philosophy or science — as well as publishing papers on hallucinations and the nature of the mind – the new wave trance flavour is hardly surprising. This is not an album to sit down and listen to like so many pop friendly catalogues. It's more an ambient aural soundscape, and one would imagine you'd use it in the same way as Brian Eno records were used 20 years ago — as a backdrop which ebbs-and-flows from one track to another. This is great trance and dance from this talented Sydneysider and it's nice to see the Australia Council getting behind it with some funding.