"Blessed with skills for musical arrangement that film score
composers would be red faced with jealousy about, and a knack of
knowing how to make impressively musical, bass-heavy music that
works in a club and on the headphones, Starkey's back with his
second album for Planet Mu, Ear Drums And Black Holes which
takes an incredibly open-ended vision of dubstep and runs with
it. Known as something of a genre cross-pollinator, he's
released DJ mixes and tracks on his own Seclusiasis label under
the ad-hoc genre title 'Street Bass'. While that description
effortlessly covers some of the tracks here, this album only
starts from that point, offering up to a whole dimension of new
possibilities. Check Anneka's delightful pop of 'Stars' or 'New
Cities' featuring Japanese vocalist Kiki Hitomi which sounds
like Yellow Magic Orchestra fast forwarded into the contemporary
world and Starkey's own gorgeous vocodered journey into the
cosmos 'Alienstyles'. But all these tracks would be nothing if
they didn't hang together be