REVIEW: Portion Control - Gaining Momentum.

Portion Control, however, never quite break out of the rather nondescript ambience of Pat's legendary Shed. One would have thought that with an expensiveprogrammable rythm unit and all the myriad possibilities of electronic music synthesisers, they could have found something better to do than make silly noises which wouldn't even be fit to grace a Dr Who soundtrack. The Portion Control formula: take a convenicently repetitive bass line, find an appropriate rythm on the box and add assorted blips, buzzes, burps and farts to (bad) taste. Bring in Pat's notorious echo box and tape gimmicks in order to stretch out even the most concise and interesting ideas to the point of nausea, add a few gratuitous sound effects such as cockerels and telephone bells and hope the general public will be wowed by the novelty of it all. "Shame (Of A Burden)" has a good atmospheric intro, "Preach" has got an endearing bass line but the much shorter version on "Rupert Preaching At A Picnic" was better, and it's only on "Brix", with its weaving harmonica and tense half-spoken vocals coming in at just the right places, thet the mixture - probably by luck rather than judgement - starts to work. Good track, Brix, but - oh Hell! not more blips, bells, whizzes and toffee tins being banged. It takes ten minutes to learn to play the Space Inavders soundtrack on an ARP Axxe, as many have discovered. As a scenaric, the solid-state utopia is revealed as a cheap plastic initation and you've just lost your second laser base.

By Des de Moor

© Des de Moor 1981. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Digital assistance and credit: Phil Barnad