Reviews from thesilentballet :

When I think airships, I think Final Fantasy. I think epic adventures into the heart of a monster-laden dungeon, trying to retrieve every shard of the water crystal to stop the complete annihilation of the espers. I don’t think minimal techno. But, ill-fitting title aside, this is the best minimal techno I’ve heard this year.

Airships Fill the Sky feels incredible cold. A bleak, Polish accordion opens the record amongst a sea of ambience. A 4/4 beat slowly emerges, usurping the ambient background, driving the demented accordion lead into a short 60 second groove. Then, rather abruptly, the track ends. Make way for some beat heavy, gritty Detroit techno influenced dance tunes. Morgan Packard uses a very interesting technique on “I think I.” The track is driven by the background synthesizers, while the drum programming forms the lead. Various sound artifacts (clicks, hiss, etc.) and various samples accent the off-kilter beat, giving the track an industrial feel (think Throbbing Gristle, not Nine Inch Nails). “I think I” leads into an accordion dominated track, with musique concrete influenced mechanical background noise. Intricately melding the natural with the man-made is Morgan’s specialty. The remainders of the tracks explore the ideas and themes brought up in the album’s exposition and every new track further advances Morgan’s distant, cold approach.

The microelectronic feel of this album allows for a great deal of experimentation in organic sounds. Much like previous releases from Ultre, Morgan uses the modern electronic medium as a canvas, painting incredibly minimal soundscapes in an intensely beat oriented sound. Additional use of cello and sax adds more of the acoustic, jazz-inspired tendencies into the overall work.

It’s hard to describe the way this album flows. All I can really say is “chilled out intensity.” Each track is a splendid study in house, techno, or break style electronica, but the urgency of the club atmosphere is drained and the sound is more akin to ambient music, while structurally more similar to dance. Airships Fill the Sky has so much substance, it’s better suited for home listening than the dance floor. This is the kind of experimental electronica that we should be seeing more of. Combining electroacoustic instruments with harsh beats is slowly becoming a great force in electronic music. This is just one more reason to jump on the bandwagon. If enough young artists hear how Packard is perfecting this style, it could become the next Acid House movement. Ok probably not, but that’s how good this album is.

At 41 minutes, this isn’t a particularly long album. It’s not packed to the brim with tracks that don’t mean anything. Nothing is worse than an album filled with fluff, and it pleases me that, unlike a lot of micro DJ’s, Packard is aware of the universal axiom: quality over quantity. The straightened 4/4 kick drums dominating the rhythm sections of the album give it a universal appeal that can be appreciated even by the anti-experimental house junkies. Later tracks, particularly “Dappled”, are straight up jams. Packard brings the bizarre filtered elements into play over simple trance-style repetitive loops, conveying a sense of desolation. As the album progresses, Packard perfects his style. Each track is catchy, yet intelligent, and the use of microelectronic music to filter in his jazz and classical stylings is just plain brilliant.

It may not be as epic and glorious as the title implies, but this is still a brilliant study in combining the organic with the mechanical, and it retains all the great qualities of techno, house, and breakbeat. On top of that, this is the guy’s debut album. Jaw dropping.