Formed around a decade ago, Data 70 are a UK electronic music duo who’ve gleefully defied prevailing trends and embraced vinyl geekery, releasing their music as a series of lovingly packaged, limited edition seven-inch singles. Beautiful artefacts to be sure, but not for everyone in the age of virtual sound. Hence this compilation, which brings together all 50 of their sublime sonic sketches in one convenient package.
Encapsulating every colour in the spectrum and a few more for luck, their alien ambience offers tiny glimpses into another dimension where the soundtrack to the weirdest movie never made plays forever on repeat.
With an average length of just one minute, they’re over before they’ve begun, the aural equivalent of paint tester pots or carpet samples, adhering to Brian Eno’s characterisation of ambient as both immersive and ignorable. All this plinking and plonking should appeal to fans of the likes of Kraftwerk, Autechre and softer krautrock.
Contemporary comparisons are pretty redundant, but Data 70 represent a post-imperial/industrial creative consciousness, that involves literally thousands of artists and collectives. A reassuring thought.
