Harmonic 313* is one of the many pseudonyms of the prolific electronica producer Mark Pritchard and ‘When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence’ is his first album under the alias (although the trainspotters amongst you may have noted his work in Harmonic 33 with Dave Brinkworth). The album is a strange beast that’s a little bit too rigid and robotic a work to be deemed a purely off-kilter hip-hop album. Its bass heavy and yet its BPM means it’s too slow to be classified as dubstep, even though it does carry all the necessary hallmarks associated with the genre: mammoth bass weight and staggering drum daggers.
The gritty opener ‘Dirtbox’ sets the tone with bags of attitude and beastly sine waves. From there things flow along nicely until the sublime wonky dancehall dub’s of ‘Koln’ and ‘Galag-a’ really take hold with some of those early Warp-era sounding synth melodies making their heavy set impression felt. 'Flaash' absolutely tore apart the Brainfeeder soundsystem last year in a Shoreditch car park and 'Battlestar' featuring Phat Kat & Elzhi is a rap attack that entirely eclipses the speak and spell moments of its album predecessor 'Word Problems'.
At times the album can be a little too rigid and the computer voices spelling Harmonic 313 grate a little after a while, taking the repeat spins of certain tracks down to a minimum BUT as a blend crafter in this new age of genre cross pollination and scene bastardization there really is no one as good as Pritchard; when he’s on form he really is on top of the game.
Links:
www.harmonic313.com
www.myspace.com/officialmarkpritchard
harmonic313.wordpress.com
*interesting fact - - 313, harks to the area code of Detroit - this could possibly be a shout to the influence the Detroit music scene has had on his productions or perhaps a name check to the run down area made famous by Eminem in 8 mile.
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