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Cursor Miner 'Requires Attention' - loads of good press
As well as being purchased by none other than Vic Reeves, the new Cursor Miner album has been getting universal acclaim in the press - some reviews are posted below. If you've not checked this little gem out yet, you can stream the whole thing here:
http://unchartedaudio.com/releases/cursor-miner-requires-attention/
It's out now on CD, double vinyl and digital formats from all good shops... please support the independents!
“Chichester electronic producer Rob Tubb rattles through disparate musical genres with a uniformly cheeky raucousness. His fourth album lingers most on Depeche Mode’s moody synth-goth but cannot maintain a serious tone – especially on ‘Minibar’, a surreal saga worthy of the Goons – nor curb his enthusiasm for ballistic percussive noise. The result is a wild, unpredictable and rowdily eccentric treat.”
4/5
(The Telegraph)
“Sometimes in music you stumble across an album that blows you into the middle of next week. This is that album. With influences from across the musical spectrum you get a work of art that proves exactly why you should not be constraining your tastes by genre or musical snobbery. Sure this isn’t strictly techno, in fact the 80’s Depeche Mode and Bowie influence is most obvious, but the ideals behind it most certainly are – something that takes you deep into a futuristic place and straps on a set of rocket propelled boots for good measure. There’s comedic genius in the shape of a ‘Minibar’ and ‘Chinese Water Torture’, as well as hard Aphex Twin-like naughtiness from ‘Silicon Savage’. Then an amphetamine fuelled Adam And The Ants makes a ridiculous appearance in the utterly batty ‘King Is A Killer’. Finally ‘Luna’ is tear-jerking wizardry that has been translated to a stunning video online. Album of the month? Album of the year more like.”
10/10
(Tilllate)
“Rob Tubb’s fourth offering is very much an album of contrasts. ‘Reject’, with its leaden guitars and Ian Brown-esque vocals, makes for a dark start, but the chirpy bassline and brass bursts of ‘The Golem Of Bognor Regis’ then breaks the gloom. Dubstep plays its hand in the mental haunted cowbell action of ‘Mad Cow’, while elsewhere wonky electronics collide with all manner of twisted, half-poetry, half-nonsense lyrics. Musical references are as far reaching as the darkest of Primal Scream, Beck or Joy Division and the glitchiest recesses of electronica, techno and breaks. Genius or madness? Listen and decide for yourself.”
8/10
(iDJ)
“Fiercely intelligent and probably unhinged electro-fetishist Cursor Miner, AKA Robert Tubb, returns with another helping of twisted IDM, dosed with surreal/humourous/gleefully offensive lyrical content in latest album ‘Requires Attention’. The record brings to mind flashes of Aphex, Si Begg, DMX Krew and various debauched cyber-punk outfits, but also reaffirms his standing as one of the few truly unique electronica artists on the scene today. Take, for example, the album’s brilliant dubstep/sci-fi funk skit ‘The Golem Of Bognor Regis’, or ‘Mad Cow’, featuring officially the longest cowbell solo ever to be used in a breakcore track. Definitely requires your attention.’
(Clash)
“The nutty but nice fourth album from Rob Tubb opens with indie dance epic ‘Reject’ (a Radiohead Creep for the post-rave generation) and features guitars on the blissful ‘Luna’ and the intense acoustic closer ‘For Each Other’. Elsewhere, frenetic breakbeats, electro beats, techno rhythms and ambient doodling make an appearance”
(Irish Daily Star)
“Most refreshing of all, though… Cursor Miner has made an awe-inspiring fourth LP. ‘Requires Attention’ merges, and at times clashes, dubstep with breaks, IDM, downbeat and so much more. An album of some magnitude, it’s the only place to find tracks about mini-bar worshipping tribes, with the most frenetic beats abound.”
(Bodytonic)
“Three albums on from his 2002 Cursor Miner debut album Explosive Piece of Mind, Rob Tubb continues to refine his blissfully twisted sound on the fourth opus Requires Attention. His tracks are severely tripped-out exercises in rave-addled quirk laced with tongue-in-cheek humour — consider the rollicking chant “Minibar,” for example, which sets sail with a voiceover recounting a looney story about a 1965 ocean liner called USS Pencil Sharpener that sank, with its only survivor a minibar that floated for 300 miles until it washed up on an island to be worshipped by natives.“Reject” (“the ground beneath my feet rejecting me…”) opens the album with Tubb doing his best Jim Morrison imitation and doling out morose lyrics in a brooding murmur while electronics slowly mass into a sweeping wave. Though the album’s material is solidly crafted, Tubb stays resolutely true to his warped vision, as viral concoctions such as “The Man With the Transparent Face” attest. Yep, “Mad Cow (Intensively Farmed version)” does, in fact, twist a cowbell into fulminating funky shape and couples it with a convulsive breakbeat throb whose corrosive slam would do any number of electronica artists proud; a similarly lunatic sensibility underscores the aptly titled “Chinese Water Torture.” “The Golem of Bognor Regis” presents a wacky slab of disorienting electropop tomfoolery in the grand Aphex Twin tradition with Tubb’s voice electronically treated into a degraded croak and backed by a sleazy electro-blues jaunt. Not that there was any room for doubt but the feverish jungle electro-chant “King is a Killer,” nightmarish incantation “Failed State,” and furious raver “Silicon Savage” prove that Requires Attention is anything but ambient music. Coming as it does after so much intensity, the acoustic folk-blues ballad “For Each Other” makes for an appealing exit. The album’s dozen songs largely play without interruption so one is rarely able to get one’s bearings before the next storm hits but that’s obviously part of Tubb’s grand plan for his latest full-frontal collection.”
(Textura)
“A brooding bassline begins as anthemic vocals cry out. “This ain’t the world that I live in/ It’s all wrong.” No, it’s not a protest song perfectly suited to a Dispatches soundtrack, though it would do the job very well. But it is the intro to the latest long-player from Cursor Miner, aka Robert Tubb. It’s a damn fine, genre-smashingly seamless, 12-track collection that can be appropriated, and interpreted, in many ways.This forthcoming fourth studio album is like a calling card for Tubb’s madcap musical ethic. There are heavy dubstep influences abound in moments such as The Man With The Transparent Face, which in turn is followed by the blistering beats and bells of Mad Cow- a track so deliciously dark and groovy it should serve to remind everyone why they need breaks in their life. Then there’s the skanking, sub-sinking King Is A Killer, Luna‘s space-age vibe, and the downbeat vocal treat that is Failed State. Oh, and did we mention the ode to overpriced hotel booze, Minibar, which deftly tells the tale of an extinct civilization, brought down by said in-room luxury.Obviously then, there’s a lot going on. It’s a statement of where the Cursor sound is at now, and represents an evolution that has spanned decades, taking in acid, techno, breaks, drum n bass and anything else sequencers have made speakers spew out since the early days of dance music. In turn it’s earned Tubb a reputation for dazzling live performances at events like BLOC, Glade and Sonar, while providing sounds that nod as much to Depeche Mode as they do Autechre”
(Plain & Simple)
“Quite certainly one of the UK’s most eccentric electronic pop music artists, Cursor Miner returns with his fourth album, ‘Requires Attention’. Rob Tubb’s idiosyncratic output on Lo Recordings, such as his previous full-length ‘Danceflaw’ from 2006, might have somewhat prepared us for this, but Tubb’s high-speed voyage through psychedelic folk pop, hard-hitting grunge breaks and a variety of other musical genres is still guaranteed to make your head spin.”
(Zero Inch)
“Electronica maverick Cursor Miner deploys his fourth album, a journey into the lawless frontiers of pop music where just about anything can happen. Oddball opener ‘Reject’ is what you’d imagine Depeche Mode jamming around a campfire might sound like, while the more circuit-centric ‘The Golem Of Bognor Regis’ lurches more conscientiously in the direction of an electro influence, whilst also sounding a little like one of Atom TM’s many guises in its absorption of chintzy exotica. One of the album’s highlights, ‘The Man With The Transparent Face’ marks a turn towards a post-dubstep sound, embracing throbbing, pressurised basslines and aggressive beats whilst keeping it quintessentially Cursor Miner with a weird lyrical contingent. Following suit, ‘Mad Cow (Intensively Farmed Version)’ maintains the dark and distorted urban edge, while such diverse treats as the Rephlex-ish ‘Full English Fastbreak’ and the star-gazing cold-wave missive (and former single) ‘Luna’ keep the top quality content flowing.”
(Boomkat)
Also:
‘Luna’ featured on the covermount CD of Gonzo Circus magazine’s 100th edition (Netherlands)
8/10 review in Clubbing Spain mag
Excellent reviews in Nowamuzyka (Poland) and Avolopolis (Greece)