TheWIRE 255: "From the Max Ernst-style Merz of the cover of Fake Universe Man to the International Corporation’s zoned out PR sheet, which comes under the guise of a big business communiquй complete with analysis detailing the temporal point-origin of each vertical stratum of the CD in relation to its position along the recording’s timeline, it’s evident The Lickets are not some tepidly traditional collective. The ten tracks of Fake Universe Man smudge and bleed into one another. In the opener, “Big Happy Bubble,” the listener enters an impossibly dense forest, ponds choked by gigantic fronds, the sky blotted out and peopled by a thousand different varieties of bird and frog. “Reconstruction Research” is reminiscent of Hal Blaine’s paisley shirted grooves and the longform tickertape rhythms on Faust’s So Far; doppler-donkey horns trot past." Read more
