Control

George Thompson, aka Black Merlin, continues to push his retro-aggressive style forward with his new Control. The first two cuts, "Control" and "Secondo", capture the neurotic, mechanical energy of a fantasy after-hours in a weapons factory with production evoking the most dancefloor forward moments of Front 242. The last two tracks discard the club's restraints for excursions into sound and narrative. "Blindfold" is a nightmarish soundtrack to automated torture, complete with shouts and screams. "Sequencer" closes with slow, moody, analog arpeggios, rising, falling, filtering, twisting around, through, over, and under each other.