ub garnered attention a few years ago with the stunning 16-minute “Summer” (apparently recorded live without the aid of sequencers or sampling) which was subsequently released by Vertical Form in 2000 on a c.d. that included remixes by the likes of Arovane and Vladislav Delay. This was followed by the acclaimed Ampoule recording Do You Ever Regret Pantomime? and, more recently, Pub’s second Ampoule collection > Single. Its title—in other words, more than single—is certainly apt, as almost all of its 6 tracks exceed 10 minutes, and the c.d. totals 74. It includes the previously released vinyl cuts “Lunch” and “Derail,” as well as the brand new tracks “Film,” “Cokeshandy,” “Kamikazi,” and “Better Never.”


One of the Summer release’s distinguishing features is its variegated approach: Delay takes Pub’s warm, propulsive track and invests it with the same deep, dub-heavy qualities that permeate Entain and Multila, whereas Arovane transforms it into a glistening jewel that could fit seamlessly into Atol Scrapor Icol Diston. Perhaps inevitably, > Single sounds relatively one-dimensional by comparison. Having registered this caveat, what more specifically does it sound like? First of all, pulsation is the focus here, not melody; conventional beats are absent on most tracks, as the repetition of pulsating synths defines itself as the rhythmic reference while traces of melody surface amidst the relentlessly churning rhythmic base. Individuating touches do appear, such as the opening babble of crowd noises in “Lunch,” the muffled, tribal clattering in “Cokeshandy,” and, sounding much like Monolake’s Hong Kong, the waves of keyboards and percussion in “Kamikazi” that emerge out of an exotic bed of whistling jungle ambience. In general, the relentless, bubbling pulse of the first 5 tracks continues unabated until the closing “Better Never” which, in true chill-out manner, is a literal calm following a relentless storm.


Frankly, an initial listen brings to mind—strangely and perversely perhaps—none other than Tangerine Dream’s Virgin debut Phaedra, whose 37 minutes of blissed-out synthesizer music was touted in a 1974 advertisement as “Music That Melts.” In spite of the fact that numerous recordings like Rubycon (1975), Ricochet (1975), and Stratosfear (1976) followed it, Phaedra remains the group’s benchmark, so defining a statement that all else Tangerine Dream produced after it is obscured by the fulsome shadow it cast. That > Single could incite comparison to a release almost 30 years old is disquieting, but that is perhaps more a comment upon Pub in particular than upon the state of electronic music in 2003 in general. Furthermore, it’s conceivable that such a similarity might testify more to the prescient nature of Phaedra more than anything else. Regardless, while it is derivative, > Single is not merely a retread of music made almost 30 years ago. It also clearly evokes the Basic Channel/Chain Reaction template, with its signature “heroin house” style of languid, stretched-out IDM and echo-laden dub. In a manner similar to Porter Ricks, waves of elements emerge and increase in volume, come to the forefront, and push other elements back. Imagine, then, the coupling of Phaedra and, say, Porter Ricks’ 1996 release Biokinetics (specifically ‘Port Gentil’) and the resultant spawn could very well be > Single. Certainly it is a legitimate release and one that serves as a representative portrait of Pub’s music, but it also contributes little that’s new to the established IDM sound, and its overall impression is weakened by its degree of derivativeness.