John Roberts At Juno Download

Review: Fences is the long awaited new album from Dial poster boy John Roberts, arriving three years after the Ohio born producer's hugely accomplished and widely lauded debut LP, Glass Eights. In the period between albums Roberts has busied himself with a smattering of remixes and the odd 12", though his primary concern outside of touring has been co-editing The Travel Almanac, a high end magazine exploring "travelling and temporary habitation for an increasingly sophisticated and mobilized generation of travellers". Not your typical techno producer then. The ten tracks that form Fences were conceived and recorded during Roberts' worldwide travels, and later sequenced and mixed in NYC and offer a further refinement on the combination of sound design, sample research and contemporary club music that characterised last year's Paper Frames 12".

Review: Producer, DJ and budding travel almanac editor John Roberts returns with his first original material since that superlative debut album Glass Eights. The four tracks that make up Paper Frames are described by Roberts as "a wonderful journey into sound design, sample research and contemporary club music" and see him experiment further with preconceptions of what club music should sound like - something that was evident on recent remixes of Blondes and George Fitzgerald. The Opening short "Untitled II" retains all the mastery of delicate instrumentation shown on Glass Eights, though it's combined with jagged rhythmic edits and acts as a neat prelude to where Roberts goes on the subsequent title track. Perhaps best described as Roberts chopping up the sounds of a bull rampaging through a Denmark St music shop, it's an excellent track and the highlight of a welcome return on Dial