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Kid 606
"Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You"
by: Zero Sharp

After a release schedule these last few years that borders almost on mania, I'm somewhat surprised that Kid 606 still has new material to release. Well, he indeed does, and his new album, which follows up on "The Illness" EP, is called "Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You." Much like many other Kid 606 material, this collection of tracks is wild, fun, and all across the shop in terms of genres and sounds. Back in the day, Kid 606 had quite a bit to do with making this IDM sound fun and varied at the same time, but it seems that he has hit some kind of saturation level. Though I wouldn't necessarily say that many producers have passed him by at his own game, many of the tracks here could have been released (and some are very similar to older tracks) on many of his earlier releases and sounded seamless. So if you're a person who wanted something new out of the guy, you'll have to look somewhere else. If you've never heard of him, or you just want a fun, spastic album, this is a good place to start. The first track, a remix of "The Illness," starts in his traditional IDM style, piecing together gabba and throughly sped up breakbeats laid under a rather brilliant and creative use of samples. The solid and interesting use of samples is a common strong point in the album: along with the IDM tradition of "If it's good enough to be a sound, it's good enough to be chopped, manipulated, and mauled into a spastic breakbeat," there's a good, funny trend to use his vocal and spoken samples well. They both will have you laughing and have you impressed on how much breakbeat he can wrap around a single spoken sentence. The album does hit all of the stops: there are tracks that sound like old jungle mash-ups gone mad, there's all the old 'ardcore feel, there's even a little bit bordering toward happy hardcore laced through a track. If it doesn't feel like I'm saying a whole lot specifically, it's because I don't really have much to say; it's a fun, spastic, ADD-inspired ride, much like much of his music tends to be. Again, I would recommend this to people who don't really know of him and would like to see what the fuss is about, but if you own some albums in this vein, chances are you'll just be hearing stuff similar to what you have, albeit possibly more clever.


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