Artist: Proem

Date Released: 2004

Label: Merck

Produced By:

Tracklisting:

1. I Don't Know How to Tell
2. Bites Their Tongue
3. Invisible for All
4. Little_A
5. Pinching Point
6. Place Gun to Head
7. When Frailty Fails
8. Out of Phase
9. Da.Vironmint
10. Carpark Kittens
11. Deep Like Airline Failure
12. Sleep is for Lunch
13. No.Imback
14. Socially Inept

ReviewEdit

Merck records is quickly becoming one of my favorite labels, which is more than likely due to my peeked interest in the electronic genres that are taking over your archaic guitars and other similar instruments. One of the 3 co-founders, along with Proswell and Machine Drum, is Austin, TX’s Richard Bailey aka Proem. On this album he takes the usual glitch sounds but really focuses them down and arranges them in such a way that is not as overbearing as some of his contemporaries. Underneath, he adds very strong, jazz bass lines and brooding keyboard melodies that inject just enough emotion to the otherwise cold counterparts. It has also has an underlying dub feel thanks to the heavy use of delay and echo on the keyboards. Overall Socially Inept is definitely an IDM album, but with something a little bit extra. He seems to know the secret that artists like Machine Drum, Prefuse 73, etc also have cracked; how to take a bunch of random snippets, and make them into beautiful music. Mpardaiolo