Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt is the third full album release of Andrew Coleman, better known as the Ninja Tunes artsy drum and bass artist, Animals on Wheels. Andrew's first album (as aow), Designs and Mistakes was fast paced, with complicated rhythms andsimple cruising melodies backed by beautiful droning or faded tones, everything coming together for some nice heavy harmonies. Then came Nuvol I Cadira, which was still beat driven but far more melodic, linear and just more mature and well crafted. Its simple, sad and hopeful vibe was a departure from what most people were making. With Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt, which was released by Thrill Jockey not Ninja Tune, the cut up beats are pushed way to the back and the melodies and harmony, while still on the same sad but hopeful vibe, get more complicated and also more fucked up. Melodies cut off randomly or during the melody different sounds fade in while another sound fades out and the new sound takes over the melody. This is an album of ambient pieces more then an expiremental dnb album.
Andrew Coleman pulls it all off very well. All the sounds are generated in softsynths and his single piece of outboard gear, the Yamaha AN1X. It really feels like he just sits down and takes the time to tweak every single sound to sit well together.
Everything Was Beautiful and Nothing Hurt is written on a picture of a tombstone in Kurt Vonneguts novel, Slaughter House-Five. It's refering to a character who was killed by a German firing squad while doped up on morphine at the end of WWII. | 
