STYLE
Rhythmic ambient structures and spacey beatless zones. Objekt4 gives the listener the impression of passing through a futuristic urban twilight where different aural states arise from each consecutive area. Mechanical beats and seemingly incidental rhythms flow from one into another - sometimes abruptly as if the listener had stepped without warning into a new sector, sometimes smoothly, fluid, gradual like a natural digression. Zones free of percussion hang in the spaces, often pregnant with expectation, anticipating the next variation. Beats range from booming post industrial lattices and muffled engineering that could almost be found sound to grooves that are just at the edge of chilled downtempo programming. The electronica maintains a similar ghostly quality suggestive of environmental sound, very modern, almost freeform synthetic meanderings that tend to be laid out in repeating arrangements and cycles that roll one into another. Tracks frequently cross refer so that a sound can be picked up in more than one piece tying the album into a unified whole.


MOOD
Space Jungle Slums conjures up crepuscular visions of abstract cities, indistinct snapshots of contemporary life, distant haziness and blurry intimacy in constant flux. There is a bleak quality about much of the music, s detachment; despite the obvious proximity of life, the human touch seems a step removed from the listener as though he or she were observers unnoticed by the world.


ARTWORK
This jewel case presentation is fronted by a shadowy photomontage of indistinct mechanical city structures. Glowing lights illuminate small sections of the design, cubist edges fragmenting the image. The reverse holds a skyscraper montage with black outlines and fuzzy lights - the only information here being contact and label details. Inside the CD is painted with a lush organic piece of graphic illustration which contrasts the glass and concrete of the sharp photograph hidden behind. The booklet holds track titles and credits on one side opening out to reveal a hazy shot of pale water pouring over a stepped surface - no words.

OVERALL
Space City Slums is the latest offering from Dutch independent label Ajana Records - a company that has gradually built up a solid catalogue of electronic music covering psychedelic downtempo, ambient chill and experimental electronica. This current CD is one of the label's most loosely structured albums so far, described as "bleak industrial ambient" and "downbeat chillout". Objekt4 is a one man project from Anders Peterson who began this current line of musical exploration in 2003. The music is separated into two sections Nexus Sector A/D recorded between 2005/6 and Jungle Vibes from 2006. Eight tracks in all that will appeal to fans looking for something straddling the space between chillout experimentation and structured ambient.

MORPHEUS MUSIC
Chill/worldbeat/ambient/electronica info hub
www.morpheusmusic.co.uk

Much of Objekt4's (real name Anders Peterson) Space Jungle Slums is strikingly odd, and not just its title. The recording's split into two four-song suites—Nexus Sector A/D and Jungle Vibes—and the music itself locates itself within a midway zone betwixt ambient and industrial, a zone that's neither overly becalmed or excessively disturbed. The album's ghostly ambient sections unfurl in a hazy orchestral style that calls to mind Tangerine Dream circa Phaedra while the industrial sections emphasize tribal percussive patterns and textures.