REVIEWS

Portion Control
Onion Jack IV: Corrective Audio

Posted: Thursday, September 27, 2007
By: Ilker Yücel
Editor

Since their return to actively making music in 2004, Portion Control have been attacking the airwaves and scorching speakers on a near constant basis. In the last year, we've seen the influential masters of electronic music release not only a new album and several remixes, but also a box set of all of their long out-of-print albums and EPs from the '80s. Now, keeping the pace up is their latest synthesized opus, Onion Jack IV: Corrective Audio. Continuing a series which began on their Wellcome album, Onion Jack IV is a 35-minute suite, broken down to 10 individual tracks, sending listeners through the group's quintessential mazes of beat-driven audio sculptures and ambient architectures, sure to send your synapses into a frenzy. Beginning with what sounds like a manipulated sample from Massive Attack's "Angel," "Pearly King and Queen" acts as an effective introduction, swirling an atmosphere of deceptive calm, building the tension to lead us into the driving beats of "Cosh Boy" and "Onion Freak," both of which are sure to entice the listener to the dance floor. One of Portion Control's strengths is their ability to make a repetitive loop a source of constant intrigue, as in the twanging synth sequences of "Drive By," while the energetic beats and warbling synth textures of "Lambeth" bring us right back to a state of danceable abandon, indicating both Portion Control's influence on today's EBM as well as the scene's reciprocal influence on them. The stereo panning effects of the first half of "All Men Need the Gods" could potentially cause dizzy spills when listened to through a good set of headphones, though Portion Control have always been ones to sonically challenge their audience. The pounding, distorted beats and samples of "Tyger" create an ambience somewhere between a ghoulish horror film and a mechanized cyber-thriller, bringing us to the closing symphonic waves and plucking synth strings of "Sunbeam," ending Onion Jack IV: Corrective Audio on a soothing note, as if to lull us into a dreamlike state after the controlled chaos that preceded. It's par for the course for Portion Control, but with this download-only release, they once again display their mastery for the craft of abstract and progressive electronica.