Robert Miles
Organik (2001)

I remember stopping to listen to “Organik” in a nightclub, just by chance. Even though I didn't know who the melodies of this album were credited to, I managed to get the DJ to tell me it was by a certain Robert Miles. Two days later, I bought the disc in question. I must immediately clarify that this album, thank heavens, has nothing to do with the previous commercial success (the single “Children”), and it also significantly deviates from the sounds of the album containing it. “Organik” is quite a bit later than the explosion of the Italian artist (his real name is Roberto Concina) and has little to do with dance music in the classical sense (i.e., dance tracks).

In this work, using the definition given by an Italian site, “the electronics are present, but they are combined in an uncomfortable and sophisticated manner”. Nothing could be more fitting. It's incredible, “Organik” communicates an expressive talent and is mixed with an unsuspected sense of taste, at least for a DJ with certain artistic backgrounds. I haven't had the fortune to listen to other works besides this and “Children”, so I admit, I don’t know his evolutionary path, but from '95 to 2001 (the year “Organik” was released) the qualitative leap made is nothing short of insane. I mention some tracks, but practically they could constitute a single track. The different chapters of the same soundtrack of a state of trance (into which you fall listening to this album). “Tsbol”, an almost chill-out opening track, sets the stage for the oncoming sensations awaiting the listener. “Trance Shapes” with very refined sounds, is arranged and conceived masterfully. It first unsettles, then urges us, allows melodious openings without ever dulling the dynamics of the track. High-level school also in “It’s All Coming Back”, which starts a bit quietly but soon reveals the full quality of its sounds, and is really well arranged even in its bass parts. Immediately following is the splendid “Pour Te Parler”, interrupted in the middle by a very refined acoustic digression (I remember it was this passage that struck me). “Wrong”, the rhythm of urgency and panic, where again a pulsating bass marks the tempo of our sensations. And so on until the three final tracks where Robert allows himself some episodes of sound experimentation, which, truthfully, I find to be a bit too cryptic.

Anyway, a great album. And even if we are not allowed to know what particular type of miraculous pills Robert Miles uses to come up with such ideas, we must recognize his intellect and class worthy of a keen arranger.