REVIEWS

Buy this album from iTunes

Broken Fabiola
Severed

Tympanik Audio

Posted: Saturday, May 23, 2009
By: Matthew Johnson
Features Editor

Manufactura's Karloz M. created Broken Fabiola to explore his more emotional side with mellow, melancholic compositions that didn't fit in with the themes of violence and self-destruction so prevalent on his main project. Fans worried about the producer going soft on them needn't worry, however; if Severed is less aggressive than his Manufactura work, it's certainly no less bleak. The emotions are there, but buried, revealing themselves subtly through the harmonic washes of sustain and reverb on "Tender Bites," the barely-there piano echoes on "Under," or the hint of wordless female vocals on "Amor Oscuro." The major exception is "Departure," a brooding trip-hop offering composed by M. with Sharon Blackstone, the other half of Broken Fabiola, as well as guest singer and lyricist Nissa. With cold breakbeats snapping over half-concealed ethereal vocals and M. himself muttering funereally between them, it comes off as a darker version of Massive Attack, as filtered through a barbiturate fog rather than trip-hop's usual cannabis haze. Similarly mournful, though less structured, is "Rewind." Written entirely by Blackstone, it's a series of breathy synth arpeggios overlapping like oceanic cross-currents, and it resembles a mournful and meditative take on Underworld's early ambient offerings. Though M. and Blackstone make good use of understated orchestral elements, there's definitely a hint of Manufactura's rhythmic noise roots seeping through as well. "Everlasting" starts out with a quiet, string-laced trip-hop rhythm but is gradually filled out by more distorted beats, and "Slave" uses abrasive beats as a contrast to its minor-key synthesizers and Blackstone's quiet spoken word. The real appeal here isn't that it's a drastic departure from Manufactura in theme or mood, but that it gives M. a chance to show off an entirely different side of his compositional abilities. Less dependent on vocoder-drenched growls and reverb-soaked kicks, Severed displays the dark complexity of projects like Architect and Marching Dynamics, both of whom provide guest sampling on this album, and will appeal to fans of ambient and IDM while still retaining enough of an edge for diehard Manufactura fans.