the gasman

Love Collection

As the price of natural gas rockets and the world seems poised on the brink of carbon-fuelled oblivion, there's not a lot of love these days for your trusty gasman. Possibly taking this as inspiration (although we seriously doubt it...), 'Love Collection' is the latest album from Portsmouth based Christopher Reeves (aka The Gasman), wherein he follows up the 'This One's For You' with some more of the shattered digital plates that made his name originally over on Sublight. Consistently teeth-juddering throughout, 'Love Collection' is a heart shaped dispatch to all things electronic - hugging the deformed IDM and ruptured digitalis to his chest and giving it the encouragement to fly. Opening with the silken silicon of 'White', The Gasman displays a real evolution in production calibre - as the splintered rhythms and electronic wash are forced together in perfect union. Next up is 'Plush', a piece of music that battens down the hatches for a break-down of truly wide-screen proportions that teases the drop for maximum impact, before 'Vigor' dons the Vicks Vapour mask and refracts some old-school rave through a modern digital prism. By no means as hardcore as you might imagine, 'Love Collection' has a very clean outlook that means the compositions never seem cluttered and instead benefit from Reeve's evident passion for the broader things in life. Elsewhere, 'Vax' is a stab-punctured trek through initially soapy soundscapes, 'Overlord' looks to Squarepusher's 'Selection Sixteen' for inspiration, whilst 'Coitus' is a beat-free opus full of billowing digital clouds. Read the meter!