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Caligo

3.2

good Review by Will R. STAFF

February 23rd, 2015 | 35 replies by

Release Date: 2015 | Tracklist Review Summary: Modern neurofunk’s prodigal son comes home to find that it’s no longer the one he once knew.

Listening to Caligo, Spor’s long-awaited debut LP, I can’t help but think of a section of Fairy Tail, a decently terrible manga I read back in middle school. Apologies in advance for shoddy paraphrasing, as I haven’t looked at the manga in years, but in short: the main characters, some of whom have become absurdly powerful for somewhat unclear reasons over the course of the previous 250 chapters or so, fight a high-octane battle against some humongous, mythical creature. The battle, which goes on for many chapters, ends with a gigantic explosion, and when the smoke clears all the characters involved are gone. In the very next chapter, set seven years later, the characters reappear triumphantly, and their friends (who presumed them dead) tearfully welcome them back into the fold, and life resumes as normal. Only, these characters are no longer the most powerful fighters - over the course of the seven years they were gone, they fell behind in their training and were essentially relegated to the bottom of the pile of the warriors within their world. (I assume the next few hundred chapters chronicled their slow ascent back to the top, but at this point 14-year-old me had had enough and stopped reading.)



Caligo, unfortunately, presents a similar situation. Jon Gooch has spent the last five years producing and performing almost exclusively under his Feed Me alias, achieving huge financial and critical (this site excluded) success thanks to an electronic music-listening world more welcoming to midrange-heavy dubstep and dirty electro house than blistering drum & bass. Gooch also did an excellent job of building a Spor fanbase, of course: his quicksilver basslines drew in so many that at one point he was one of a tiny group of drum & bass artists with massive crossover appeal (the group largely consists of rock- and metal-esque acts like Immersion-era Pendulum and The Qemists). However, countless pleas for a Spor revival fell on deaf ears for years.



And then, of course, Caligo happened. A series of semi-cryptic teaser tweets about a possible Spor album came to a head in December when Gooch announced that a new Spor album would be out in March. He later announced his plans to release the album on March 9 as a pay-what-you-want download via the popular torrenting engine BitTorrent followed by a physical release on March 11. Sometime last week, a promotional copy of Caligo leaked, prompting a rightfully furious Gooch to release the album almost a month earlier than planned, and the suddenly-released torrent attracted so many people that at one point there were two users seeding while upwards of three thousand clients attempted to download the file.



Caligo very much sounds like an album we might have expected Spor to make. Despite the fact that it would never be able to live up to the near-decade of hype which had built up around it (not an indictment of Spor so much as an indictment of ravenous fans expecting far too much), it still sounds a lot like the circa-2010 Spor sound which catapulted Gooch to stardom. The absolutely devastating “Coconut” checks all the bona-fide-neurofunk-banger boxes: sci-fi movie sample, deceptively simplistic-sounding yet intricately layered drums complete with a cracking snare, and (most importantly) menacing, fluid low-end engineering. It’s pretty much an adroit summary of Caligo as a whole - the album is a consummate return to roots, a showcase for Gooch to flex his bass-manipulating muscles and annihilate any thought that his time as Feed Me has softened him.



However, what once put Spor at the forefront of the drum & bass scene is no longer quite so interesting. Everyone and their dog is making well-produced if creatively-deficient neurofunk now, and so many of the sounds on Caligo sound recycled from something Audio or Mefjus might have put out sometime in the past few years. We’re no longer hailing the DnB derived from guys like Ed Rush and Optical as the cutting edge - the most exciting developments are coming from the burrowing bass of Ivy Lab or Hybris’ neurofunk deconstruction. The kinds of sounds here would have been massive five years ago; now, we don’t care as much.



And while this kind of excessive name-dropping might seem like a bit of a cop-out in terms of describing the album as its own individual entity, it’s useful to invoke the names of people who have been making killer neuro wobbles to show that what used to be special just isn’t anymore. Of course, there’s some deviation from the norm on Caligo - the top-tier brostep of “Like Clockwork,” for example, with its crystal-clear synth pads layered on top of simple, highly-rhythmic wobbles, or the way-too-short bassy crush of “Our Space.” There’s even some high-quality neurofunk here: “The Hole Where Your House Was” streaks forward at ferocious speeds, opening precipitous sonic caverns with each kick and overhauling the tempo at precisely the right moments.



However, at the end of the day, Caligo sounds uncomfortably like a retread of what’s been done so many times before. There are just too many iterations of “Always Right, Never Left” and “Full Colour” for it to be possible to proclaim the album as forward-thinking. And while old sounds will of course reappear on most drum & bass (part of what makes new material so alluring is how well it builds on the old), Caligo cleaves just a little too closely to the material of the days of yore to be the Spor album we wanted. Drum & bass in 2015, if it is even worth critical consideration and appreciation at all, demands a certain subtlety in approach that Spor has always rejected. Somewhere in that repudiation lies Caligo, and its anachronistic ethos, while mildly interesting, simply doesn’t cut it anymore.



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Recent reviews by this author No Mana Secret Level Jason Ross 1000 Faces Carly Rae Jepsen Dedicated Shyun and Cruk See It Our Way The 1975 A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships Eminem Kamikaze Listening to, Spor’s long-awaited debut LP, I can’t help but think of a section of, a decently terrible manga I read back in middle school. Apologies in advance for shoddy paraphrasing, as I haven’t looked at the manga in years, but in short: the main characters, some of whom have become absurdly powerful for somewhat unclear reasons over the course of the previous 250 chapters or so, fight a high-octane battle against some humongous, mythical creature. The battle, which goes on for many chapters, ends with a gigantic explosion, and when the smoke clears all the characters involved are gone. In the very next chapter, set seven years later, the characters reappear triumphantly, and their friends (who presumed them dead) tearfully welcome them back into the fold, and life resumes as normal. Only, these characters are no longer the most powerful fighters - over the course of the seven years they were gone, they fell behind in their training and were essentially relegated to the bottom of the pile of the warriors within their world. (I assume the next few hundred chapters chronicled their slow ascent back to the top, but at this point 14-year-old me had had enough and stopped reading.), unfortunately, presents a similar situation. Jon Gooch has spent the last five years producing and performing almost exclusively under his Feed Me alias, achieving huge financial and critical (this site excluded) success thanks to an electronic music-listening world more welcoming to midrange-heavy dubstep and dirty electro house than blistering drum & bass. Gooch also did an excellent job of building a Spor fanbase, of course: his quicksilver basslines drew in so many that at one point he was one of a tiny group of drum & bass artists with massive crossover appeal (the group largely consists of rock- and metal-esque acts like Immersion-era Pendulum and The Qemists). However, countless pleas for a Spor revival fell on deaf ears for years.And then, of course,happened. A series of semi-cryptic teaser tweets about a possible Spor album came to a head in December when Gooch announced that a new Spor album would be out in March. He later announced his plans to release the album on March 9 as a pay-what-you-want download via the popular torrenting engine BitTorrent followed by a physical release on March 11. Sometime last week, a promotional copy ofleaked, prompting a rightfully furious Gooch to release the album almost a month earlier than planned, and the suddenly-released torrent attracted so many people that at one point there were two users seeding while upwards of three thousand clients attempted to download the file.very much sounds like an album we might have expected Spor to make. Despite the fact that it would never be able to live up to the near-decade of hype which had built up around it (not an indictment of Spor so much as an indictment of ravenous fans expecting far too much), it still sounds a lot like the circa-2010 Spor sound which catapulted Gooch to stardom. The absolutely devastating “Coconut” checks all the bona-fide-neurofunk-banger boxes: sci-fi movie sample, deceptively simplistic-sounding yet intricately layered drums complete with a cracking snare, and (most importantly) menacing, fluid low-end engineering. It’s pretty much an adroit summary ofas a whole - the album is a consummate return to roots, a showcase for Gooch to flex his bass-manipulating muscles and annihilate any thought that his time as Feed Me has softened him.However, what once put Spor at the forefront of the drum & bass scene is no longer quite so interesting. Everyone and their dog is making well-produced if creatively-deficient neurofunk now, and so many of the sounds onsound recycled from something Audio or Mefjus might have put out sometime in the past few years. We’re no longer hailing the DnB derived from guys like Ed Rush and Optical as the cutting edge - the most exciting developments are coming from the burrowing bass of Ivy Lab or Hybris’ neurofunk deconstruction. The kinds of sounds here would have been massive five years ago; now, we don’t care as much.And while this kind of excessive name-dropping might seem like a bit of a cop-out in terms of describing the album as its own individual entity, it’s useful to invoke the names of people who have been making killer neuro wobbles to show that what used to be special just isn’t anymore. Of course, there’s some deviation from the norm on- the top-tier brostep of “Like Clockwork,” for example, with its crystal-clear synth pads layered on top of simple, highly-rhythmic wobbles, or the way-too-short bassy crush of “Our Space.” There’s even some high-quality neurofunk here: “The Hole Where Your House Was” streaks forward at ferocious speeds, opening precipitous sonic caverns with each kick and overhauling the tempo at precisely the right moments.However, at the end of the day,sounds uncomfortably like a retread of what’s been done so many times before. There are just too many iterations of “Always Right, Never Left” and “Full Colour” for it to be possible to proclaim the album as forward-thinking. And while old sounds will of course reappear on most drum & bass (part of what makes new material so alluring is how well it builds on the old),cleaves just a little too closely to the material of the days of yore to be the Spor album we wanted. Drum & bass in 2015, if it is even worth critical consideration and appreciation at all, demands a certain subtlety in approach that Spor has always rejected. Somewhere in that repudiation lies, and its anachronistic ethos, while mildly interesting, simply doesn’t cut it anymore. user ratings (19) rate it Awful - 1 Very Poor - 1.5 Poor - 2 Average - 2.5 Good - 3 Great - 3.5 Excellent - 4 Superb - 4.5 Classic - 5 2.7

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Comments: Add a Comment 1

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Next Album Rating: 3.2



full album stream here: http://soundcloud.com/spor/sets/caligo







got fuck-all idea about release date for this thing but it's officially out at this point





Good review, although I don't really agree that he never had an ear for "subtleties" with his earlier material. This might be right for the part that he never went for a techy micro-rhythmic sort of style, but the details within the atmosphere and his sound design that made his tunes hard-hitting but at the same time organic set him clearly apart from the rest, and I don't think that tunes like "Some Other Funk" or the "Knock You Down" VIP have lost any of their impact. The issues on here imo rather come from the influences of his Feed Me moniker, with the drums pushed to the front and anything else left in a sort of arbitrary compression mush. All of the elements that he used there just seem so exchangeable, like he could have used anything else by adding the final "spice" with some treats on the masters, which is just pretty boring and leaves the tracks sounding like from "one piece". On the other hand he's just following obvious trends though with the compression and loudness levels going up and up, others might be more into that than me.



Album Rating: 3.2



Yeah, totally agree with that assessment - some of his older tunes have definitely withstood the test of time in a way that I'm pretty sure none of this will. That said, what made Spor so alluring for me initially (as well as for so many others) is that so much of his stuff wasn't subtle - that is, well-designed sonically but also vicious as hell (Hydra especially is one of my favorites because of how hard it goes). The sound design on some of these tracks is also very good (The Hole Where Your House Was especially) but IMO his strengths have always been very different than the stuff that's killing it today (i.e. Break's new stuff, Live On Your Smile by Ivy Lab, Sunchase, etc.). It's kind of like saying that Mefjus doesn't use subtlety very well - like, his stuff is very organic and visceral, but that's also because of how loud and in-your-face it is (in a very different way than this stuff), so I would put him in the same category as Spor from five years ago or so (related: I don't like Mefjus for many of the same reasons I don't like Caligo)





Great review, Will. I have a similar feeling towards this. I never was a big Spor fan to begin with but this album had me intrigued. It was massively hyped, but I wasn't really impressed. It sounded like okay neurofunk to me. Might give it another listen - there are decent tracks, of course.



Have you heard Xanadu's LP? It's the first album released on Dom & Roland Productions by someone other than D&R. I think it's much better than this, though it's more techstep-oriented.



Drum & bass in 2015, if it is even worth critical consideration and appreciation at all



I wouldn't worry. From what I've heard, 2015 will get us albums from DLR (soon), Klute, Dom & Roland, Skeptical, ASC, Break, Ed Rush & Optical, DJ Marky...





Album Rating: 3.2



I've heard really good things about Through The Oort Clouds on dnbforum but hadn't actually checked it out until you just mentioned it. The first track is jaw-dropping, thanks for turning me on to it! I really do think DnB is in a fine place right now (the new DRS should help that even more, and fingers crossed that the new Reso will be even close to as good as Tangram), and the new releases should be great. I've been really digging the new Ivy Lab EP (though I think Missing Persons is still better), so if you've got a sec it's worth a listen (especially the digital-only tracks + Slinky, which are hella weird but kind of wonderful).





I'm actually not familiar with Ivy Lab - will have to catch up and hear them out!



And yeah there's so many great things happening with D&B. It's often just a matter of looking in the right places. I'm psyched for the new DRS as well - it should be good. And speaking of singers making collaborative albums with junglists, Riya's got one coming as well this year :-)





Album Rating: 3.2



Check this one out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHhu28WNILk







It's one of their more "standard DnB" tunes but my word is it phenomenal. The melodic progression + bassline works so so well. Had no idea Riya had something coming out! She's not my favorite vocalist at this point, though that has less to do with her and more to do with the fact that the tunes I've heard her on have all kinda sounded the same, but I still have high hopes. (Also, while we're talking about full-lengths, apparently the new Phace has leaked. Gonna wait to buy it when it comes out I think but I've heard great things about it so far)





Gotta be honest, I take crazy issue with the summary. Spor had a couple of great tunes (Aztec, Judderman), but it seems odd to call him a genre's prodigal son when he a) never really capitalized on the level of attention he received, and b) walked away from it for a good couple of years. Also, what is "modern neurofunk"? It's a sound that's never really had any major change to it since Ed Rush & Optical pioneered it 15 years ago



Album's terrible. Never trust a drum & bass album where 90% of the tracks are under 4 minutes.



Protip: you'll be wanting to check out my dig



Album Rating: 3.2



Gonna be DLing the album pretty soon, hear it's an absolute killer. And I more say he's the "prodigal son" not because of how good he specifically is (although I do quite enjoy a lot of his earlier work) but because of the level of hype and acclaim he got from many listeners (especially non-DnB ones). Obviously he doesn't have the same depth of back catalogue or consistency of some other artists, but in terms of massive appeal (both within DnB and without) I'd say his popularity and the amount of hype this album has been getting forever gives him a certain amount of "respect" (the wrong word but I can't be assed to think of the right one atm) that he obviously didn't capitalize on fully but that nevertheless made him incredibly well-liked to the point almost of religious devotion. Maybe I've just been talking to the wrong people though







And in terms of "modern" I mostly use it because he specifically caters to the people (including me) who got into the style during or after his prime - not modern as in stylistically different but modern as in the time during and after which he's been active



Album Rating: 3.0



Album's decent, far better than Calamari Tuesday at any rate. I still wish 'Blue Girl' had been revamped and included on here though, that's my favorite of all of his bootlegs.





Look at this guy



Digging: Inanna - Transfigured in a Thousand Delusions

he hxc af



Digging: Visceral Mass - Visceral Mass Album Rating: 3.2



Funnily enough that's his press photo now top which is just a terrible idea on so many levels





I agree with Deviant on this one. This album would have been better if it was just a collection of all of his bootlegs honestly.



Album Rating: 3.0



"Never trust a drum & bass album where 90% of the tracks are under 4 minutes"







lol





what the fuck is neurofunk





It's a style of drum & bass music



I'd say his popularity and the amount of hype this album has been getting forever gives him a certain amount of "respect"



Really? I can't name anyone I know who even really knew that he was "back" until he remixed The Prodigy a month or so ago. If anything I'd argue that he (and this album) pretty much flew under the radar. Outside of anyone who might have liked his Facebook page anyway.



I do feel that he's really only popular outside of drum & bass circles due to both being Feed Me in his spare time (I suppose that's the other way around now) and because he was clever enough to remix some high profile artists as well



And in terms of "modern" I mostly use it because he specifically caters tothe people (including me) who got into the style during or after his prime



His "prime" was kind of the pinnacle of the style though. I don't think he was specifically catering to anyone, apart from his own tastes anyway. Seems kind of a weird way to look at it, but to each their own. It just seemed kind of an unnecessary addition to a summary when it wasn't really needed, especially when you just mentioned that he seems to be past his prime. But that's just me being me





Well, I just hope he's going a bit more experimental with his next release, something likes this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViXtKjBi_Mc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kv_GdHb-0p8



These tunes could be already seen as "dated" compared to the recent production trends, but I would love a return to this more untamed style. Seems unlikely that he'll switch back the clock in that way though.





This guy used to make good dnb, Supernova is his best ep prob, all tracks rule on this one





the fact he even came and made an album a spor was good enough for me. the chance to see him tour possibly is good enough for me (even tho he said he never would but is touring the UK currently). i didn't look forward to this release cos i thought it would reinvent dnb, i looked forward to it because i just liked spor. plain and simple. sometimes things can just be what they are. never on this site, but in the rest of the world.



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