Words: Will JobbinsYou see, in much the same way as an infinite number of monkeys using an infinite number of typewriters could eventually come up with the script to Hamlet, so an infinite number of amphet-addled bedroom producers using an infinite number of pirated copies of Cubase could eventually come up with a half-decent house track. To make matters even more complicated, the original house genre has splintered into further subcategories such as electro, progressive, tech, deep, acid, ambient, funky, ghetto, hardbag, vocal and more. The last time such a huge variety of house was available was after the last great crash in the property market, but the problem is that a lot of it is decidedly average in quality. Sticking with the property metaphor, most of it is like your typical grey suburban end-of-terrace flat conversion with leaky pipes, an unexplained smell of fish in the airing cupboard and a really bad violinist living just upstairs.

In contrast, Deadmau5 – aka Canadian producer Joel Zimmerman – is your five-storey Kensington town house with a roof garden, swimming pool and a solid gold bidet with diamond fittings. He has been partially responsible for reinvigorating the genre over the last two years or so with a succession of blinding single releases, and subsequently followed these up with this, the full-length Random Album Title.

At first listen, it errs on the side of so-laid-back-it-needs-a-third-leg progressive house but with hints of tech house, minimal, techno, trance and more evident throughout. The whole album is underscored with a single relentless 4/4 beat, metronomic in its precision, while various melodic devices, synths and effects are gracefully and gradually mixed over the top.

What Deadmau5 – pronounced ‘Deadmouse’ if u cn’t rd txt spk – really does with Random Album Title is to create a mood, something he does to perfection. At no point whilst listening to this album will you jump up and shout “I love what he did there!” There are no single moments of self-indulgent showboating, and the tracks themselves are mixed together and blended seamlessly so that the whole album could pass for a single, gently morphing track. You’ll find seconds slipping into minutes, minutes into tens of minutes, your mind will wander and suddenly you’ll realise you’re over halfway through the album and in an almost Zen-like state of mental dormancy.

The harmonics are very well programmed and elementary in their simplicity – sequences and cadences are arranged in textbook minor key compositions designed to provoke subtle emotional responses, and it’s all held together with that thumping, hypnotic beat. The effect is warming, uplifting and often slightly melancholy; occasionally the music is brushed with gentle lyrics, as on I Remember, but most of the time it is left to work its magic alone. The samples used, including the percussion, are all slightly dulled – that is to say muffled, as if heard through a very thin wall – which in some way adds to the hypnotic, detached effect. The beat pauses for long enough for one of The Mau5’s most popular tunes, Faxing Berlin, to be introduced with an acoustic piano version but soon enough is pumping again. By the time you reach the last track, So There I Was (which incidentally features a thoroughly enjoyable mind-numbing synth effect), that ebullient sub-bass kick beat – which at first seemed so monotonous and boring – has become an ingrained part of your brain and feels as natural as your heartbeat. It is like a friendly pair of hands massaging your brain firmly and rhythmically through your ears, and you’ll miss those hands when they’re gone.

Don’t buy this album expecting electro house bangers – look to Deadmau5’s single releases for the harder tunes he’s written – and don’t buy it Label: Ministry Of Sound – www.ministryofsound.com
Format: CD, digital download.expecting widdly musical complexity and technical skill. The real pleasure in Random Album Title is to be found in its restraint and in its subtle mood manipulation, and despite the fact that everything about this album suggests it should quickly become boring, repetitive and cheesy, on some subconscious level it retains a real originality and still sounds fresh and inspirational over six months after release. It’s house music, Jim, but not as we know it…