REVIEWS

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Various Artists
Advanced Options 3

BNE/YoYo Records

Posted: Wednesday, May 28, 2008
By: Amy Mauk
Flash Animator / Motion Graphics Slave

Every year on America's Next Top Model, there's a girl who takes great pictures but who inspires the judges to say, "We still forget about you in judging." This year was Katarzyna, whose name was her most memorable asset. In a sense, Echotek's Advanced Options 3 is the musical Katarzyna. There's nothing about it that is particularly displeasing, but it eventually just becomes a gray blur of drum machines, each song resembling the next so much as to hardly be a different song at all. Songs glide along on the wave of one drum loop; by the end of the album, it's as though one can't pick out any moment of any song as anything particularly memorable. The whole album becomes a faceless mass, a page that you know you just read but can't remember.

There are a couple of songs that are more memorable than others, even if only slightly. Moshic's "The Lost Room" sprinkles in some unexpected Indian vocals to break up the monotony, but they still don't quite justify the song's length, which is more than eight minutes. Brisker & Magitman's "Late Night Drive" is a high point, being both interesting and danceable. There's an odd little beeping noise that pokes its head out in between stuttering drums, and something that even resembles a chord progression. If only Brisker & Magitman would spread the gospel of non-repetition to the rest of their disc mates. Advanced Options 3 may not fall down on the catwalk, but it's not exactly working it either. To paraphrase RuPaul: Echotek, you better work.