BT – These Beautiful Machines Review February 19, 2010 Label: Nettwerk Productions BT – These Beautiful Machines

www.btmusic.com www.myspace.com/btnetwork By Mike Bax

A household name to fans of electronica and progressive trance music, BT’s new double album might appear as a bit excessive to some. Can it hold a candle to albums like Physical Graffiti, The Wall, The White Album, The Fragile and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness? I guess time will tell that tale. What’s obvious from the first play of These Beautiful Machines is that it may very well be BT’s (real name: Brian Wayne Transeau) White Album. Featuring guest vocalists/collaborators Kirsty Hawkshaw, Jes Brieden, and Charlotte Martin, there are plenty of lengthy explorations into progressive trance on These Beautiful Machines to keep his core audience more than happy. The ‘extra meat’, if you will, comes on the second disc as it broadens the scope of These Beautiful Machines for the listener, making it that much more than just a solid album.

Firstly, BT ups the ante with two songs that are collaborations with Catherine Wheel vocalist Rob Dickinson (‘Always’ and ‘The Unbreakable’). Both tracks are jaw-droppers, and make me lament for a full album of material by both musicians. Next up, Ulrich Schnauss co-wrote the track ‘A Million Stars’ with Kirsty Hawkshaw and BT, and Hawkshaw sings on the track. And lastly, the beautiful cover version of The Ghost In You by the Psychedelic Furs included as the final track on the second disc is worth the price of admission for purchasing These Beautiful Machines all on it’s own. This isn’t my first BT album. I own two of his earlier albums. Of everything I’ve heard from BT, this is by far the most appealing material I’ve heard from him to date. These Beautiful Machines is rife with material that DJ’s scour the racks for – that ever-challenging-to-find sweet-spot of a song that will round out a movement of music within their evenings live set. What’s amazing about These Beautiful Machines is that the whole two hours on the album plays like that magical sweet spot. These Beautiful Machines = required 2010 listening.