Fundamental Slime –  Darto (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

Coming on like a long lost Berlin-era Bowie track that fell down the cracks and missed its place on one of those three strange and sublime albums only to resurface years later, Brotherhood is the perfect way to kick things off. I don’t know if the Bowie reference is being too obvious but, despite so many artists claiming to be influenced by him, few create anything that expands on his body of work. Copy, plagiarise, pastiche, cover or downright rip off, yes that has been done to death, but Brotherhood feels as if it is actually taking his thought processes and running with them into new territory.

But this is Darto and just when you think you have things sorted out, they sonically shift and slide into whole new worlds. Totality is a dream state lullaby, Persona is a cool jazz ballad all sultry saxophones and spoken word and Everyday Actor wanders into the realms of a motornik infused downbeat New Romantic pop song.

Even over 4 songs Fundamental Slime covers more creative ground, looks under more musical stones and weaves more sonic ideas into its tapestry than most bands do across whole suits of albums and that is Darto‘s great charm. They operate outside fad or fashion, they belong neither to now or then, generic boundaries are irrelevancies, musical styles are playthings and apart from the aforementioned, there are few useful comparisons. There are not many bands that you can truly say that about.