Tu M' and the Magical Mystery Orchestra is Rossano Polidoro and Emiliano Romanelli's homage to the sleek, patterned surfaces of late-'70s minimalism -- witness the opening "Glamour," in which the
Steve Reich back catalog gets its best workout since
the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds." A snippet of piano here, a brief chord sequence there, are frozen in time and morphed and glitched into new shapes by the Italians' software, the resulting music still managing for the most part to conform to the aesthetic of minimalism as defined by
Reich in his seminal text Music as a Gradual Process, even though it all has a distinctly 21st century digital sheen. It's luscious, creamy stuff -- maybe a bit too filling at times -- a couple of tracks could easily have been trimmed down to half their length without affecting the result -- and another highly entertaining and recommended entry in the ever-expanding
Tu M' discography. ~ Dan Warburton