Review of Cartwheel's CD "Man: In Love With Machine"

Cartwheel: Man: In Love With Machine

With a name better suited to a lumbering set of Creation Records shoe-gazers circa 1993, imagine the surprise to find sweet tinged electronica drifting from the speakers. Like so many great records, Man: In Love With Machine starts out sounding perfectly ordinary only to find a few listens later that it's become an essential part of your landscape. Probably due to the subtly of the sounds and production on offer which have the distinct flat warmth of early analogue synth work.

Four tracks of equal merit, more background lifestyle than up front point to prove, but enjoyable none the less. There are inevitable comparisons: a down beat Orbital, Stereolab sans le guitar, the falsetto vocal interjections even reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine (with out the wall of noisy guitar of course). Fans of the genre will certainly appreciate coming down on a Sunday morning to the sounds of Cartwheel, but the subtle invention is likely to be lost on a broader audience... until a slice of it is used on an advert selling mobile phones that is.

• www.cartwheelmusic.com

Find related articles: my bloody valentine, analogue synth, noisy guitar, inevitable comparisons, creation records.