Leila - Courtesy Of Choice

  by David McNamee

published: 17 / 12 / 2001

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Review

Occassional Bjork collaborator and Aphex Twin protégé follows the acclaimed (and aptly-titled) ‘Like Weather’ with the album Thom Yorke was too hung up to write. And the little guy’ll be kicking himself at dragging ‘Kid A’ out of gestation because, released weeks apart, ‘Courtesy Of Choice’ doesn’t have to tear its conscience apart to justify its existence and ultimately achieves a naturalness lost in the unheimlich Radiohead career-swerve. It isn’t post modern because unlike many other leading examples of the genre (if you must really prescribe genre to any forward-thinking efforts of true originality) Leila doesn’t use reference points as crutches. The cremated soul of ‘Gush Goog’ for example, revives the spirit of pre-Robert Johnson blues with rushes of abstract sound like its never been away. This is an album set to dispel any accusations which equates electronic music with a coldness and lack of humanity. Where many proponents of electronica appear inhibited by and at the mercy of their technology, Aphex Twin by contrast actually sounds like he is inside the machine and Leila conjures sound as if she lives permanently plugged in to the stratosphere. If we recognise that music is a science not defined by academic rulemaking, but a living, breathing soundtrack to every human thought, impulse and emotion whether it can be articulated in a literal, logical manner or not… then an album like this can sound like nothing else on Earth (and that, pretty much, is exactly what it sounds like) and still mean something. And forgive me if I’m being naïve, but isn’t that what it was all about?

Track Listing:-

1 Brave
2 Work
3 From before what
4 Relax from the pleasuredome
5 Sodastream
6 Gush goog
7 To win her love
8 Thanks Mr Jones
9 To tell a lie
10 I won't forget
11 Be clowns
12 Different time
13 Different time (reprise)
14 Young ones