As I started to conceptualize and eventually write this review, it occurred to me that attempting to review works by Vladislav Delay has become increasingly difficult to execute to a high degree. Then I realized that we could say this same exact thing about just about any other supposedly ‘forward thinking’ electronic artist on the planet. It’s kind of a mess because there is a lot that can be said about the career of Finland’s Sasu Ripatti.

Vaguely born out of the hazy and dark excursions of the Mille Plateaux label (as well as a plethora of smaller labels who took their inspiration from it), it is fairly easy to say that when Ripatti came into the electronic music world, he could have easily been forgotten as the entire Clicks-N-Cuts movement reared to a screeching halt. But with a few EP’s and a full length CD that came out on Forcetracks in 2000, he quickly proved to the electronic music world that he had absolutely no intention of being left behind or looked down upon. The CD in question, Vocalcity (recorded under Ripatti’s Luomo alias), was and still is a near-brilliant milestone in the evolution of dance and electronic music that rightfully deserves all of the acclaim it gets (even if he may view otherwise). To seal the deal further, within the same year, he released the classic and monumentally essential Multila on the Chain Reaction label, a dark and hypnotic trip into the sub aquatic realms of Ambient music and Techno. At this point, there wasn’t much that was preventing Ripatti from putting a viscous stranglehold on just about everyone within his musical scope.

But, by golly, the times sure do change, don’t they. Electronic dance music and all of its subgenres, forms, and variations fragmented at an even faster pace then before, as the ease of music production via cheap or hacked software allowed any fourteen year old the ability to be the next electronic music wonder. Years passed, bringing forth a batch of new recordings from the Finnish artist, and while I will spare you the history of them, I will say that during this time I believe that he produced his weakest works. But so did everyone. Caught up in an area of music that had absolutely no idea where it wanted to go, by around 2002 or 2003, nobody really knew what to do and began to work on whims and impulses. This situation resulted in not only a fragmentation of genres, but a little talked about but intensely important aspect of electronic music and it’s progression - the fragmentation of production approach. Don’t quote me on this, but I want to say in or around 2004 or 2005, people decided that sound design was a superfluous dead end that resulted in a lack of emotion from it’s supposed ‘raw’ form of general musical composition and ‘ideas’ (as if ideas are somehow separate from the sound sculpting process). Its status among the general listening population was aligned to a technically impressive but unnecessary coating to a track that would survive on its own without high end sound design.

As far as base composition is concerned, I think this is fine. But what people don’t seem to realize is that sound, not only music, can be extremely emotional and powerful. The way audio properties and characteristics interact with one another in certain frequency ranges is just as emotional as the way tones will interact with one another, and I cannot comprehend why so many people think otherwise and dismiss it as ‘soulless’ or ‘emotionless.' I have a very hard time identifying with these people because they seem to be so radically against everything I find a deep sense of emotion in. Hence, I think that Vladislav Delay’s new record, Whistleblower, arrives at what I believe to be crucial for music like this. In a time where ironically retro electronic music is mixed up with convoluted  ‘new’ ideas that nobody should have thought of in the first place to laughable acclaim, Vladislav Delay is one of the few more respectable sound sculptors out there whom I feel is fighting the good fight.

In a lot of ways, Whistleblower is a very ambient record, a genre which I will say isn’t exactly renowned for it’s sound design. Trying to grasp for a sense of rhythmic normality within each of the tracks will leave you empty handed and more than likely confused. But make no mistake, aside from the pleasant-yet-deep tonal mood present throughout, this album on whole is a mesmerizing and beautiful display of sound and rhythmic manipulation against an ambient backdrop. Ripatti’s skill over the past few years has brought him into a league of his own, and on Whistleblower, it perhaps shines much more than it ever has before. As soon as the record starts, you will hear the trademark dubbed out basslines and enveloping tones that provide a narrative for the perfectly connected synthetic and acoustic rhythmic work. Each track develops it’s own personality while refraining from straying too far from the path, which as always, helps Vladislav Delay records instead of ruining them. "Wanted To (Kill)" is a particular highlight for me, with its off balance time signature polymetrics, fumbling electronics, and melancholic drones that expand and contract as the song drifts towards its end. To sum it up simply, take his album Entain and mix it with his album The Four Quarters. It works as well as I could have hoped.

Despite my accolades for it, this CD is not perfect. For all the mastery Vladislav Delay has in whatever he does, his progression in the past four years hasn’t been so much leaps and bounds as it is cautious plodding. He seems to have found a wonderful niche where he can explore, but does not really expand from it to the degrees I think he’s capable of doing. And despite this release's excellence, its consistency of mood may in fact bore certain people looking for something more energetic. Those interested in what I will consider the unrealized future of electronic music, should immediately pick this up, as well as many of his other albums. Many people may have decided that sound design is a needlessly technical barrier, but they couldn’t be more wrong. There is beauty and emotion in sound design and nobody in a million fucking years will convince my mind otherwise.

-Eric Common