Home Read Classic Album Review: 2 Lone Swordsmen | Stay Down

Classic Album Review: 2 Lone Swordsmen | Stay Down

The U.K. duo are submerged in their medium — and armed with cutting-edge tools.

This came out in 1999 – or at least that’s when I got it. Here’s what I said about it back then (with some minor editing):

 


Like the pair of deep-sea divers armed with an acetylene torch on this CD’s cover, U.K. electronica producers Keith Tenniswood and Andrew Weatherall are fully submerged in their medium — and armed with cutting-edge tools.

In their case, however, the implements are the bubbling bass lines, waves of strings that ebb and flow, scuba-breath effects and radar-blip synths that enable their dubby, ambient constructs to float on gentle currents of motion — and produce rapture of the deep in listeners. In the words of George Clinton, it’s a psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop.