[shakti]	review from dimm

This is actually the first robert miles cd I've purchased, and I'm glad it was. I almost bought the preceeding release, 23am, but was spending most of my money on another genre.

Here, Robert explores his ethnic side with help from Nitin Sawhney, Dhruba Gosh, Trilok Gurtu, Bill Laswell, the London Session Orchestra and others. But it wasn't the music that made me buy the album, it was the sublime cover art. It spoke volumes about the nature of the cd, dark and angry at times with strange new energies to explore.

People familiar with Miles' previous work may not like this new effort pressed by Shakti Records because it's completely original and involving, unlike all that club-crap of year's past.

But of course, this is what happens when you get the aforementioned players in one studio. Straying from the techno-ambient-club aesthetic that Miles' is most well known for, he takes a more 'organik' route with guitars, sarangi and orchestral grooves. Epic in overtones and possessing a driven quality underneath, Organik follows no formulas or genre rules. The outer limits are explored in "It's All Coming Back," a spliff that could slip into the next X-Files flick with ease, while "Trance Shapes" reveals the dark secret that the government was hiding...

The Men in Black theme continues with Laswell's inspired and shadowy bassline in "Release Me," prepping you for the full realization of Gurtu's, Miles' and Laswell's genius in "Improvisations (Parts 1 & 2)."

This cd is a must for anyone looking for something to inspire the dark and gloriously weird side of that lives in us all.