Stripped might well be one of the more disingenuously-titled albums in electronica. The descriptor is easily betrayed by Le Mar's characteristic liquid squelch, digital snap and pop, and the sheer miasmic surface tension of the entire enterprise. And the better we listeners are for it. At once gleefully and respectfully signifying the engaging 90s era of IDM while simultaneously pointing into a far more cybernetic aural future, Stripped is hardly that; it's somewhat more 'streamlined' than Le Mar's early works, but that hardly diminishes its brilliant, complex, and magnetic sound design, where the listener's attention is so engaged one must literally react to the rhythm. |
