Continental European musicians somehow tend to be more universal and almost more innovative. Learn to Recycle should be the name and the homage to this ability to blend all the impossible trends together into something rather tasteful , to break the ground, and to overwhelm with the sheer passion for music.

Learn to Recycle is a six-minute masterclass on exploring the endless possibilities of playing the same routine in different styles. Yet this feat of a track doesn’t come until the second half of the album. The previous seven tracks are exquisite antipasti. Early songs, like A Warm Welcome and Get Down My Dirty Street, feature the signature delayed intro. Set Me Free and Ghetto Burning are praised for their vocal arrangements and collaboration with Yolanda. Ho Visto Un Quadro Verde reminds of soundtracks from 1970s Italian police dramas. Learn to Recycle draws the line under all the previous experiments by giving a complete piece of daring, experimental dance music. And, to judge by Zombie Army, Phonat’s got a good sense of humour.

Apart from his gigantic height and passion for music, Phonat’s biggest asset is the good taste. The album’s structure and contents only confirm it. Where another artist would fall into banality and repetition, Phonat always stops short and changes direction – just enough to make a critic gasp for breath. In the album’s last song he asks if his mother would get to listen to this album. Sure, she will, and she will be proud.

Julie Delvaux

Score: 5/5.

Check out Set Me Free which could set light to any dancefloor; a potential chart topper which could have been released any time between 1991 and 2009. It takes the Hagar era Van Halen model to its ultimate conclusion and combines soft rock vocals and epic synths with an infectious dance groove. There’s no Eddie Van Halen solos but Phonat isn’t averse to dropping in some of his own nifty guitar lines here and there throughout the album– it just takes a while to tune your ear into them as they are so well disguised in the mix. Learn To Recycle is similarly epic and, whilst it may have an environmental point to make it also has potential to generate some dancefloor mayhem.

Ghetto Burnin’ is driven by one of Phonat’s dirtiest guitar riffs and features some ball busting ragga vocals from Yolanda. There’s more to the album than just full throttle potential chartbusters however, and the highlight of the album for The Music Fix comes with It’s For You which is kinda like Mark Knopfler jamming over a Robert Miles soundscape; providing the ideal chill-out conterpoint to the hyperactivity. The whole thing is enormous fun – what more can you ask for?

Full article taken from http://www.themusicfix.co.uk/content/review/6388/phonat.html

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“Phonat is a mythical beast capable of crafting the most majestic and soaring of dance music as well as the most creative and carelessly stylish. His previous works, such as Learn To Recycle, have shown both his musical and technical skill as he effortlessly hops between genres using the same set of sounds and makes it all cohesive and brilliant. Phonat’s new EP is out and the man does not disappoint. It opens with Get Down My Dirty street which slowly but surely builds itself into a funky and moving jam full of horns, stabs, and guitars, all of which Phonat uses to perfection to make you dance…” READ FULL INTERVIEW ON THE BLOG…