Glitterbug, "Privilege" and LIVE at the Sniff Club

Glitterbug's newest album appears to be a bit intimidating due to its over two hour running time. But it turns out to be very easy on the ear, ebbing and flowing like a well-executed DJ set. Glitterbug's debt to the Cologne sound is obvious, but I also hear strong currents of Donnacha Costello's atmospheric melodicism, Ullrich Schnauss' death-by-synth-overdose neo-shoegaze/dance, New Order's "The Perfect Kiss" gone the way of M83's "Couleurs", and Pentatonik's long-form melodic techno from the mid-90's (surely I'm the only person who hears it though ... anybody else?). There isn't any one section of the album where it horribly drags and you start wishing the guy had hired an editor, but at the same time, the album is merely consistently good but rarely great (those exceptions include "Calcutta" and "Waves", both of them dipping their toes into the kind of gaze-y dance music that I usually can't resist, and the 1993 Basic Channel vs 1993 Juan Atkins soundalike "Over Water (dub edit)").

Based on last night's set, Glitterbug's DJ sets are virtually mirror images of his own music -- the man plays the kind of music he likes to record himself, or vice versa. Either way, no complaints from me other than my own tardiness -- his set started earlier than I expected so I missed about the first half-hour. On the other hand, I arrived during the peak of his set and thus was immediately won over. On the third hand, when you arrive during peak time then everything goes downhill from that point. What can you do?