| Red Extensions of Me | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Studio album by The Flashbulb | ||||
| Released | February 24, 2004 | |||
| Recorded | Winter 2003 | |||
| Genre | IDM | |||
| Length | 62:50 | |||
| Label | Sublight/Suburban Trash/Bonnerwachs | |||
| Producer | Benn Jordan | |||
| Professional reviews | ||||
|
||||
| The Flashbulb chronology | ||||
|
||||
Red Extensions of Me is the fifth official full-length release from Benn Jordan as The Flashbulb.
This album seems to be driven by the aesthetic of drum n bass/jungle theory, used to accentuate a particular focus on electric guitar-controlled MIDI sequences written in a neo-classical metal style. The last two tracks (Lucid Bass I and II) are straightforward drum n bass tracks, featuring a long, repetitive running time and rhythm and elements such as triggered samples of sleep therapy tapes during the breakdowns, the classic drum and bass rhythm, mandatory amen break/Apache break chopping, looping, dreamy, pitchshifted synth passages and robust, heavy, droning sub-bass lines.
As usual for Jordan, the track list of the album includes tracks that serve as short breaks from the main theme of the album, for example, short classical piano pieces ("In an Instant") or folk music-esque acoustic guitar/singing tracks ("If Trees Could Speak"). This is the first album released by Jordan as The Flashbulb to feature outside musicians in the recordings. Despite all of this, however, the comparisons between his work and the work of his peers Tom Jenkinson and Richard D. James grew exponentially with the release of this album. It is a criticism that Jordan has fought since he was first branded with the label of a copycat with M³. In particular, many parallels were drawn between this album and Squarepusher's Ultravisitor, because of Jenkinson's use of raw amen break chopping and "bass guitar"-controlled MIDI sequences. Red Extensions of Me was released just before Ultravisitor, although promotional leaks of Ultravisitor first appeared several months before its release.