FREQ Magazine
Small Craft Warnings

Small Craft Warnings is a seriously laid back recording. At points the tracks sound reminiscent of early 90s ambience, but Drum and Bass is just as much an influence as The Orb. The album is packed with breakbeat loops and attitude. It moves from the spacious ambient epics like "Ether", through more detached and distant tracks like "Stealing Seven". Eventually Alex Gordon drifts towards relaxed Post-Rock guitar drones of "New Love". This is where he shows his Sonic Youth-inspired roots. He came up through the L.A. independent scene in the 90's and was a member of the guitar band Loomer. All in all a good ambient album.

The San Francisco Examiner
Small Craft Warnings
Review by Bill Picture

For his debut effort, Los Angeleno Alex Gordon lays his 10 years or so of musical experience -- he has worked with everything from dark alt-rock to hip-hop -- out on the table and displays each influence like a picture in a photo album. While many artists get caught up in capturing a specific sound, Gordon dances on a rope stretched high above a concrete pool of ambient trip-hop, seemingly unconcerned with the hows and whys that he knows will only weigh him down. Careless? Absolutely. Moody? Oh yes. Gordon kisses us on one cheek and slaps the other, but the combined sweetness and sting leaves you begging for more. File under bipolar. - Nov 08, 2001

LEFANTASTIQUE MAGAZIE
(Translated from French)
Written by Frederic Cotton

Small Craft Warnings is an album where the sound is always positive. Forget everyday life and dream of a better world, where stress and time do not exist anymore, such is the effect produced by Alex Gordon, in a world reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece 2001 Space Odyssey - where robots do the chores while respecting human domination. A concept of reality in certain aspects, when you think about it. Tempting but sterile utopia.

XLR8R Magazine
Small Craft Warning Remixes
Review by Phillip Sherburne

John Tejada, who mastered Gordon's debut album, turns in the first remix here, and it's classic Tejada, techy and punchy and brimming with color. It's anybody's guess how he pulled that out of these tracks, however: Gordon's own mixes range from the tranquil pastoralism of 74:14-era Global Communications to the windswept landscapes of Third Eye Foundation; his "Low Fi" mix rumbles like a more poignant Pilote, perhaps. Justin Warfield's take falls somewhere between these poles, rattling the breakbeat saber across a radiant horizon.

BOSTON HERALD
By MICHAEL J. RYAN
October 26, 2001
New Music: Five for Friday

It is to Alex Gordon's credit that "Small Craft Warning" works at all.

Blending trip-hop, some ambient sounds and fragments of guitar, Gordon turns what could be a muddled mix of electronic noise into an enjoyable, poppy 50-minute delight.

Each time a song seems to meander in a puzzling direction, Gordon pulls it back in and incorporates hypnotic drum loops that power the songs ahead. "Eternity" and "Never" are examples of excellent vision and production.

Gordon previously worked on the West Coast rap and hip-hop scene as an engineer. From there, he ventured to Japan to work production for post-modern acts. He obviously mastered his craft because "Small Craft Warnings" never seems to drag.

The production is excellent, as the disc is a seamless movement that works best when listened to as a whole.

My biggest complaint is that Gordon's tastes veer a tad too much toward trip-hop. This disc could have used a tune or three with subtle percussion.

GRADE: 8/10

ELECTROAGE ONLINE MAGAZINE
Review by Phosphor

Alex Gordon has a lengthy and varied career in music, from alternative pop to hip-hop, so it’s not surprising to hear some of these sounds in Small Craft Warnings, his debut release under his own name.

The overall framework of Small Craft Warnings is that of ambient electronica, and all that comes with that term. Elements of avant-jazz, trance and pop all work their way through the dozen instrumentals comprising the album. The results are very strong, as well. Gordon has a keen musical ear, even for sounds that might not be considered overly musical. Waterlilies cascades slowly with trancey ambience, light percussion and bleepy synths, and it comes off as catchy as any pop song. Now Love is a spacey affair, and again, extremely pop-like in rhythmic structure, touched with some acoustic instrumentation and an almost eastern musicality.

Bits of jazz intermingle with soundtrack-like epic level electronic sweeps and spiralling, faint percussive loops characterise Ether which follows a warped trip-hop electronic miasma in Stealing Seven. Indeed, Small Craft Warnings becomes increasingly abstract as the album wears on. Orpheus Rising is one of the more evocative tracks, a dark drum and bass track tinged with piano and foggy electronics, appears near the end and the title track, the closer, is as opposite the popish beginnings as this album could get.

Alex Gordon has taken a lifetime of musical experience and crafted a very interesting, intelligent piece of electronic music. At first, it seems out of place for the experimental label, but by the end, everything makes sense.

The DIN - Boston's Weekly Dig
Vol. 3.26
July 11 - July 18, 2001
Review by Tom Kilduff

With Small Craft Warnings, LA producer Alex Gordon delivers twelve downtempo tracks of tingly substance, each one murky and atmospheric. The resume of Gordon's musical past includes songwriting for Loomer, an alternative guitar band, working the West Coast rap scene as a hip-hop engineer and making headway in Tokyo, where he indulged in further electronic production. Since the completion of this trip-hop voyage, Alex has been collaborating closely with techno recording artist John Tejada as well as laying the groundwork for the follow-up to Small Craft Warnings, which will include vocals and lyrics. Small Craft Warnings, however, is filled with tumbling snares and dripping high-hats; "New Love" starts off with pin drops and is carried by wind chimes, a mouth harp and the echoes of the infamous wine glass trick. "Electro-Glide" ebbs and swells like a windswept day at the beach collecting curious sounding seashells. Overall, Small Craft Warnings is a very pleasing and non-aggressive soundtrack for contemplation.

Vybemuzic - Dance Music Magazine
Issue # 6 : 11 : 28
November 28th, 2001
Rated: 5 out of 5
Review by Radionic

This record came out of nowhere and is just as unique and interesting as compared to the original remixes. from the depths of ones sonic delights is a creative effort that is encompassed around many time zones, tonal values and transitions into one capsule. his style is smooth, sathy, somewhat dark and definitely infectious pop-jazz, making small craft warnings a great beginners record for the jazz crowd and downtempo fans. it molds itself into a point and humms right along in your face to a point of being superbly harmonious with nature, but is unique enough that i believe it deserves some recognition for being abstract. "waterlillies" is by far my favorite track on this 4 track ep, but is just the beginning of all the other treasures to discover.

BARCODE ONLINE MAGAZINE

Based in LA, Alex Gordon presents us with an ambient album belying his roots as a recording engineer for rap and hip-hop artists in the West Coast area. However 'Small Craft Warnings' still manages to incorporate hip-hop infuenced dubby effects and trippy drum loops into the equation, and it is these ingredients that give life to the melodic ambient underbelly of the songs. Ignoring the melodic plaigarism of 'Waterlillies', a cringing copycat of a well-known Underworld track, this album has a lot to offer. The methodical ambience of the simple 'New Love' is most enjoyable. However, it's the second half of the album where Alex Gordon's songs really come to life. The dreamy ambience of the appropriately titled 'Ether' and the trinkling pianos, rolling drum loops and spiralling effects of 'Orpheus Rising' are a joy. The soothing strings of the title track end the album in a state of illusive bliss.

ROCK SOUND MAGAZINE
Rating: **** out of 5
Sept. 2001
Written by GileZ Moorhouse

He's not dark, and he's definitely not waving, but hang on, don't grab your coat just yet. Variously described as a sonic architect, a genius and a cult, it remains to be seen whether that last comment is actually praise or a spelling mistake. A departure from Gordon's guitar heavy days of LA's loomer, a band more likely to be compared to Sonic Youth and The Jesus and Mary Chain, a couple of spins through the album reveals "Small Craft Warnings" to be near-compulsory listening for those of a more easy-going disposition. Anyone that gets their rocks off listening to Portishead, Plaid or Tricky's more esoteric moments will find plenty to enjoy here. Standout track has to be the Underworld-off-their-faces-on-puff of "Waterlillies", although the ambient freakiness of "Ether" and the beyond-mellow trip-hop of "Electro-Glide" aren't far behind in the quality stakes. Alex Gordon: he's got a license to chill...

FUTURE MUSIC MAGAZINE
Rating: 7 out of 10
Written by Andy Jones

Here's a US-based artist producing what most US-based people would call 'electronica' but which isn't simply a tedious take on trance circa 1996. With a more ambient tilt this seems to draw some influence fromearly Warp output with structures, melodies and ethereal washes occasionally backed by laid-back grooves. The results are, as such, always interesting and occasionally mesmerizing. And with collaborators such as rapper Justin Warfield and Siggi Baldursson (ex Sugarcubes) Gordon could well become the champion this US music scene has been waiting for...

ALTERNATIVE PRESS MAGAZINE
Volume 16 Number 158
September 2001
Rated: 8 out of 10
Article by Mark Burbey

Alex Gordon combines texture and melody to create machine-like music with atmosphere and emotion. With Small Craft Warnings, demonstrating influences ranging from Frank Zappa to Bill Nelson, Gordon has created an achingly brief 46 minutes' worth of electronic instrumentals displaying both ingenuity and substance. Alternately blissful and engaging, the album's 12 track strike a balance between the hope of daybreak and the pensiveness of dusk.

Gordon's blend of soothing synths and industrial rhythms will appeal to fans of Plaid, and the more adventurous will enjoy his melding melody with dissonance. But the inventive discord takes a backseat to the infectious pop-jazz compositions, making Small Craft Warnings a pleasure cruise worth repeating.

CMJ NEW MUSIC

Los Angeles-based producer Alex Gordon has donned several distinct musical personalities in his day, playing a crucial role in the development of spacey guitar-pop band Loomer before becoming an acclaimed producer in the West Coast hip-hop scene. Small Craft Warnings, his first solo effort, loosely ties both of those influences together as Gordon anchors layers of abstract sounds and textured melodies with heady trip-hop beats. His dub-ambient excursions may not run as deep as some of his contemporaries but standout cuts like "Eternity" and "Never" ensure that you'll keep a watchful eye on this fresh talent. - M. Tye Comer: CMJ New Music Report Issue: 721 - Jul 02, 2001

E-mail any comments or questions to Alex Gordon at alex@alexgordon.com

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