A sterling, ambitious effort from an adventurous avant-garde ensemble.
Most of the tracks covered are from the Drukqs album, tackling some of his most complex works head-on. Alarm Will Sound does a fine, fine job on just about all of these works, an obvious standout being the incendiary version of "Cock/Ver10" which serves as the album's opener.
The highlights of this album fall between his melodically-rich drill n' bass and his drifty ambient music. "Blue Calx", "Gwely Mernans", "Fingerbib", and "4".
Even when the ensemble renders a couple cuts unrecognizable, the result is usually very interesting.
The remixes don't hold my attention much, but all in all this is not your average "String Quartet Plays" type of orchestral cover album. In fact, calling these covers almost seems like a disservice to Alarm Will Sound: they treat Richard D. James like a composer and provide creative orchestration solutions with their imaginative interpretations, done completely acoustically (save the electric bass on "Meltphace 6").
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To be honest, every time I listen I feel like switching to the inorganic sound that Aphex brings. I won't deny that it is a very nice album, though... or rather "'Pretty good' 'Yeah'"
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