Neotropic (person)

In the predominantly male world of intelligent dance music musicians, Riz Maslen, who records as Neotropic, stands out not only as a female, but also as an extremely talented and innovative artist.

Riz Maslen's musical career took off in the late 80's when she moved from Gloucestershire to London and met the duo of electronic musicians known as Future Sound of London. On their album Accelerator, which includes the massively popular track Papua New Guinea, FSOL used Riz's strangely hypnotic vocals to great success. Her interest in electronic music growing, Riz took out a loan and set up a home studio of her own. When 1995 rolled around, she signed to Ninja Tune's sister label, Ntone, and released the Tumbleweed and Laundraphonic EPs. During the same year, she also signed to the Oxygen Music Works label with her lesser known side project, Small Fish With Spine, releasing the singles Sickleback and Fugu. Through these early releases and her inclusion on several Ninja Tuna compilations, Riz quickly established herself as an artist to watch.

In each Neotropic album, Riz has completely redefined her sound in a way that is similar to Aphex Twin's own stylistic restlessness. Her first release, 15 Levels of Magnification, is a blend of hip hop beats, drum and bass, ambient and electo styles all swirled together into a brooding, dark work. Her second, amusingly titled release, Mr. Brubaker's Strawberry Alarm Clock, takes her style to a new level with a much more polished sound that includes more of her beautifully haunting vocals. I should clarify a bit about my usage of the word vocals in this context. In her 3 albums, there's only has one song with lyrics -- in the others, Riz generally uses her voice as an instrument, letting long sustained notes drift their way through her dark, dense music like a ray of sunlight piercing dark clouds.

In recent years, Riz has taken an increasing interest in independent films and even produced the music for "System Noise", a film shown at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival. Her most recent album, La Prochaine Fois (the next time), reflects her growing interest in independent film and is actually a soundtrack to Riz's own 40 minute, self-described "ambient road movie", which is conveniently included with the album on a second disc. As such, the album is a complete departure from the sound of her previous releases. Featuring collaborators Nick Mcabe of the now defunct Verve, Mike Rowe, keyboardist for both Oasis and Sheryl Crow, and Sally Herbert, who has played strings for the Manic Street Preachers, the album casts off the electronic roots of Neotropic and gives birth to a sound that has been described as "electronic folk music". The dark hip hop ambience of her previous works demur to a lighter, instrumental sound of strings and guitar sculpted into the sound of a sunny afternoon's daydream. Delicious stuff.

If her most recent album is the final culmination of Neotropic's sound, I'd be perfectly, blissfully content, but I can't imagine that Riz Maslen would ever stop growing and improving her art. I eagerly await her next release.