Bleep

Si Begg continues to think two or three steps ahead of everyone else. First off, he built a new set of sounds for a programme in collaboration with the Zero-G sound designers; he then used the programme to create the Extreme Environments album in 2014; and as a follow-up, he’s done another album using the same software but focussing largely on the vocal tones. Extreme Vocal Environments is not always obvious as an album built on synthesised vocals - at least, not in a way that something like Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity is. Synthesised singing forms the basis of the tracks here, but often they spiral away into unrecognisable pastures. Observe, for instance, the coos and crackles of ‘Vocal Location 2’ or the thousand-yard ambience of ‘6’. That said, Begg does often use the tones in a more conventional way, creating some beautifully thick textures.