THE CLARKE AND WARE EXPERIMENT
PRETENTIOUS
ALBUM MUTE, PLAYGROUND RELEASE: NOVEMBER 29, 1999 REVIEW: NOVEMBER 24, 1999


The sleeve notes of "Pretentious" instruct me to wear headphones to hear the incredible 3D-effects properly. I give it my best shot but I really can't hear anything special, just the ordinary stereo effects, sounds moving between the right and the left headphone.
Since a good part of the music on this album was tailor made for the auditorium at the National Centre for Popular Music in Sheffield, I suppose you can't ask for it to work as well with just a pair of headphones. Still, I feel a bit cheated. Without the fancy high tech stuff, you are left with an album's worth of bland instrumental ambient music. 
It's quite a surprise, coming from two synthpop pioneers like Vince Clarke and Martyn Ware. I can picture them being quite happy with getting to work on something so different from their ordinary music, even though they're using their usual tools, synthesizers and computers. Hopefully this little adventure will imbue some fresh energy into their future recordings, which at least Erasure is in dire need of.
With powerful speakers or a good set of headphones, these soundscapes are at times powerful and enchanting, and I'm sure they are a hundred times more so in their intended arena. On record, they get drowned in the competition.

MATTIAS HUSS