Voide: Red Turns To Blue

Voide is a prolific and talented Swedish electronic music producer, based in Stockholm, who has been making music since the late 80s. He has been releasing tracks as Voide since 2006 and the latest album, ‘Red Turns to Blue’ comprises 14 tracks. Five of these are vocal collaborations, one with the German vocalist Suzie Electro and the remainder with the Australian vocalist Pixieguts. Voide’s musical style is heavily influenced by classic early electronica producers such as Kraftwerk and Jean Michael Jarre and these influences can be clearly heard on his latest full-length release. Voide’s considerable experience in making electronica is obvious in these recordings which contain some great, rich analogue sounds and are uniformly superbly mixed and produced. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but at his best, Voide’s tracks have a flowing energy and drive provided by 303 sounds and other classic synths, and underlying smooth expansive melodies; ‘Red Turns to Blue’ isn't short of examples of this style.
My personal favourite track ‘Traffic’ has a fast, futuristic computer game feel, evocative of fast crossing streams of headlights on city highways and driven by crunchy, flowing techno sounds- this track rocks! The superb ‘Red Turns to Blue’ is a worthy title track for the album, its more soulful chilled and widescreen feel evokes huge, early morning skies, and Pixiegut’s vocals lift every track she appears on. ‘Into The Sun’ is a truly beautiful track, which glides over a wide, warm ocean powered by chugging 303-style analogue synths- this sound is classic for a very good reason.
However there can be a downside to Voide’s heavy use of classic electronic styles. Kraftwerk-inspired robotic vocals are overused particularly on the opening track ‘The Beat of You’ where the somewhat uninspired computer-sung lyrics and unoriginal feel detract from Pixiegut’s vocal. To be fair, Kraftwerk themselves aren’t always known for the quality of their lyrics! ‘When the Skies are Grey’ sounds a bit like Kraftwerk attempting a trance track, but fortunately also has plenty of the smooth techno momentum that is one of Voide’s biggest strengths and provides the glue that holds this album together.
However Voide isn’t scared to tackle a range of different electronic genres, the Madonna-esque ‘Love (feat. Suzie Electro)’ sounding like professionally sung and arranged 80s dance pop if nothing else, and ‘Necropolis (feat. Pixieguts)’ is a crunchy, unexpectedly dark if tongue-in-cheek slice of gothic electronica. The relaxed ‘Lazy’ is unfortunately again let down by its slightly uninteresting lyrics, but ‘Beauty for the Wicked’ shows that when Voide decides to experiment he can produce some interestingly structured and beautifully chilled electronica.
As a whole I found that “Red Turns To Blue’ misses a clear sense of theme due to the variety on display, and suffers from a lack of originality in places. However, despite these criticisms the album contains some very enjoyable and atmospheric tracks which I’d recommend to any fan of this genre, and a range of impressively well-produced material.

Voide's Homepage:
http://www.voide.net/
Pixiegut's Homepage:
http://pixieguts.com/
Suzie Electric:
http://www.myspace.com/suzieelectric