Minatour Shock - 'Amateur Dramatics' (4AD) Released 11/08/08

Housing a contract with 4AD is about history, legend and pioneering artistry. It also, as Minotaur Shock's David Edwards curtly points out, "...spunks a lot of money on lavish felt-lined gilded box-sets made by nimble-fingered faerie folk who live in the woods". What then is the marginal artist of talent and self-belief to do to keep the hounds from the door. Edwards has taken the matter to hand on his latest, 'Amateur Dramatics', and hit upon a way of justifying the cost of each track - a pricing matrices for each track dependent on factors including live instruments, technical diffs, fun/replay rating... It's a pitch that finds the pricing reasonable, hitting a total cost of £6.39 for the album, keeping both the accountant, artist and consumer happy in the net result.

An artful blending of the arrangements of Mighty Math and the organic instrumentation of Dollboy with a dab of Italo-house beats, Minotaur Shock houses his electronic programming with the well-versed classicism of accompanying flautist, cello and  violin as on the jolly baroque stylings of 'Zookeeper' and the zippy technoid 'Am Dram', the former with samples of Grandma's pianette setting the pace, the latter's 4X4 beats fashioning an imaginary soundtrack to a Hollywood makeover of The Wombles, as 'Two Magpies' evokes a Dollboy-esue lazy calm.

Only a mean spirit wouldn't allow for the price hikes on 'This Plane Is Going To Fall' (worth the cost in the title alone) with the happy Herbert-like bounce and shimmery vocal sample which at 66p seems a snip, and 'My Burr' (a reference to his West Country accent) shows all the inventiveness of 2005's 'Maritime' highlight 'Vigo Bay' as strings and melody intertwine with the beats most gorgeously. 'Buzzards' meanwhile, is the one that is least likely to have you looking a doofus on the dancefloor as a Sigur Ros-esque drama is spun from pips of brass and bassy beats.

Mixing the live instruments in was a doozer, writes Edwards of 'Accelerated Footage', fashioning a tea-party for androids with a manic assemblage of beats, bell samples and violin stirring it on up, and the mechanical 'Jason Forrest' uses elements of 'Passchendaele' by GoodBooks and holds a vintage sheen like a nugget up Johnny Trunk's sleeve from Vision On or Rhubarb & Custard, while there's dark and cobwebby sinister airs on the Authechre-esque 'BATS', and a creepy nocturnal feel to 'Snapdragon' from the Bates Motel pianette and violin.  

'Beekeeper' holds out for the killer denouement with a high-wire act and pirouettes at 77p with a high fun/replay rating from this scribe, and given today's cherry picking consumer they'd be missing out on the grand opera of all that is 'Amateur Dramatics' to just head straight to the check-out.