Having seemingly disappeared for a while -- but who knows what he'd really been up to, given how easily the Internet allows for an anonymous career --
Bogdan Raczynski reemerged in late 2007 on
Aphex Twin's Rephlex label with
Alright!, an eight-part blast of arty merriment that plays around with a slew of familiar dance tropes and has great fun doing it. Practically a concept album based on the title word, which crops up as a series of vocal interjections in the opening number delivered by different voices in different styles,
Alright! looks back at everything from gabber to drill'n'bass, feeds it through a sonic blender that's at once hollow-sounding and bass-heavy, and keeps throwing one curve ball after another. Whether it's the sweet twinkle of a new keyboard melody toward the end of the first part, the simple overlay of synth bells and chimes heralding a crackling rhythm explosion on the fourth track, or the sheer exultance of the final part, there's much to enjoy right as it happens. Plenty of now-familiar moves recur -- air-raid siren analogues, rising synth swells, and melodies heralding a climactic conclusion -- but are used so well that
Alright! stands as its own effort as well as a celebration of its source material.
Raczynski's main goal is to keep the beats going, though, and sometimes his constructions are so delightful that laughing happily in sheer pleasure is as logical a reaction as dancing -- the second track turns into a goonily jumping beat that almost outdoes his label boss' work at its own game. The seventh track makes for an enjoyable contrast as a result, a much slower-paced but not sleepy song that could almost be a classic '70s science show theme given a slight futurist revamp.