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Released
1997

Reviewed by
Kim Alexander

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Last Edit/Update
08 April, 1998

Test Department

Tactics for Evolution

         
Track Listing

Enigma of Doctor Dee
(nothing happens in contradiction of nature
only in our understanding of it)
Unforgiven
(finding your frequency)
Voyager
(we speak the same language because we
have embarked on the same journey)
Atlantis
(submerged mindscape of possibility)
2 Ghettos
(psychological and physical mindtrap)
Dark Light
(total focus)
Motivation
(belief in yourself)
Miotica
(choose your time use your mind)
Vena Cava (Lifeblood)
(pharmaceutical fundamentalism vs natural law)
Rat
(prisoner of exclusion at zero tolerance)

          Once again Test Department has brought us another excellent release with Tactics for Evolution. This CD tends to be as in traditional style of later releases with drum and bass yet also leans towards a more techno feel in some tracks.
Thematically speaking, this release builds upon the last release Totality, with ideas of wholeness, systems, and evolving with the use of technology to survive the modern mode the species has found itself within during these times of rapid change and adaptation to those changes.

          "Technology is the material realization of ancient thought. Beware somethings are not what they seem. We are all the stuff of stars and in each of us lies both the future and the past of the whole universe. Take it easy, and stay in tune." --Liner notes from Tactics For Evolution.

         The first three tracks are more high speed, pertty melodic in parts,  drum and bassy techno- edge-jazzy, not without synths sort of works -- very tasty. Atlantis on the other hand is so different, starting out with samples about "...this being a free country..." simple at first drums and melody, then stepping up with a wonderful fullness of that marching sort of swishy drumming, synthetic interjections and vocal harmonies you might find at some church Sunday morning, and including what sounds like Martin Luther King speaking out that: "We are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied" in beat to the tempo amongst other samples.  Excellent track... "Just a free country..."
          Dark Light has some chanting of males, hard hitting drum crashes, fast paced, lighter in feel -- noisey, clanking, rolling synths that keep you wondering what's coming next in the track. Motivation begins with what sounds like a sitar, a soft melody overlayed by a slower tribal sort of drums and beat blended in with indigenously effective male (and some female) vocals and horn like sounds, that makes me think of a shaman standing over watch of his tribe.
          Miotica has a darker feel to it yet is again slightly more upbeat than the last track, less so than the first three, great drumming of course and an eerie keyboard harmony which slows down intermittently to allow for more sampled vocals. The final piece: Rat, is an interesting work using more noisey insertions of twisted synth sounds then takes off in hard hitting power drumming and lurking sonics.
          Overall I think this is an excellent CD. It is faster in tempo than previous releases and has taken on a brave techno-edge approach to experimental noise, bass and drum. If you enjoy Test Department's earlier work and techno-edge composition, you won't be unhappy with Tactics For Evolution.

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Tactics For Evolution