Album Review: Sonicanimation - Once More From The Bottom

It's their first studio album in over a decade, but listening to it begs the question: did sonicanimation ever need to come back? Adrian Cartwright and Rupert Keiller had a perfectly good legacy thing going, with some catchy, even iconic singles. Now, it's hard to even remember what those annoyingly awesome Technotubbies looked like.

Once More From The Bottom has flashes of greatness jammed in between some of the most irrelevant, grating dance music you're likely to spin, with ideas touched on and pushed away like unwanted redhead cousins. Between the record's first pair – The Message and I Will Be Twisted – you get the full spectrum, everything from Balearic guitar and soulful crooning to drum'n'bass and wobble. After a few middling cuts neither here nor there, Take It From Me appears, the first to feature vocals from Canadian Sexton Blake, and boy it's a dud: “To quote Whitney/You can't take away my dignity”. Really? Twins follows and it's equally as inane and annoying, sounding like a pop cutting left on Aqua's studio floor. Look a little closer and what you discover is that four of these latter tracks are pulled from Electro Social Club, the electronic theatre project of Blake and Keiller. It's cringeworthy cheese and also a little bit cheeky as it's more or less getting passed off as sonicanimation stuff, which it's not.

This creates a jarring listen that is pretty much indigestible as one fluid piece. Imagine being at a club, losing yourself on the dancefloor, then having the beat stopped, then started, then stopped, again and again and again. Once More From The Bottom is that prick flicking the switch.