hello
various - electro for droids 2xcd
pile of extreme wank. it sold out all over the place so i had to resort to
buying it from virgin (18 pounds 50) who encase their cds in huge plastic
security frames, which meant i couldn't check out the liner notes. how i
wish i had! after some chin-strokingly indulgent drivel from david toop, i
discover that all the 'obscure' electro 'classics' i hadn't heard of were
infact tracks from a few years ago at the earliest. and my god they were
crap. the cd is back in the hands of virgin now (after a cash refund) so i
don't recall the intricasies of the running order, but basically you'll
already have all the good tracks, except on here they're either in the form
of extremely poor remixes (plaid, nitro deluxe, hashim) or fade out half
way through (planet rock the elektric music mix, jedi knights 'solina')
i mean, fade outs.. come on, do people really take this guy seriously?
v/vm (supposedly well-respected manchester gescom wannabies) reviewed this
record and called it 'the ultimate electro collection' and that the tracks
were 'beautifully segued together' - well they are certainly not. unless
you call fade in/fade out and a complete disregard for tempo matching good
mixing, which i don't. did they even listen to this cd? for their sakes i
hope not (by the way the gig was alright, though if you want extreme noise,
you could always play the contents of your hard drive or a cd-rom on
varipitch/varispeed. don't think what you do is difficult)
some memorably laughable moments include abysmal rubbish contributed by
freefall 69 (nondescript), a couple of politically right-on asian
underground dance tracks (they went off after approximately a second. it's
a disease amongst middle class fuckwits like toop to give 'cultural
reference' priority over production values - these tracks were done by
clueless idiots, and it's irrelevant whether they come from bangladesh or
bangor. isn't 'breaking in space' about the erasing of cultural identity,
mr. toop?), and surely the highlight of the cd (in comedy terms at least)
was a hilarious contribution by a group called 'bleep and booster'
(compulsive trainspotters will have encountered their records many times in
the bargain bins) which was about the most amateurish piece of steaming
turd i've ever heard commited to plastic, and about as far from the spirit
of electro as cliff richard. i have heard better demos on yamaha general
midi synthesizers. and of course mr. toop had to get his royalty
percentage with two (mercifully short) 'sonic interludes' which sound
exactly like a middle aged highly educated knob hitting buttons at random
there were probably worse bits, but thankfully i've forgotten them now
please don't buy this record, which will only make mr. toop even richer, so
he can carry on his sordid little mission to severely fuck up good music
----------------------------------------
dmx krew - you can't hide your love / remixes / what's that bass?
rephlex are on cheese overload! first the utter genius of sam and valley
(why don't i find it surprising that g@warp can't get into this?) and now
an avalanche of 85 electro parody from ed dmx and his wenches sharon and
tracy.. erm infact that's lee and tracy.. first the eps
the lyrics on these tracks would surely make buck's fizz cringe with
embarrassment - they are incredibly trite, and sound exactly like something
a clueless 14 year old schoolgirl would write to accompany her friend's
dance routines that they perform at the old people's home. they are so bad
that, and i'll probably say this again, the whole thing has just GOT to be
a pisstake. on the musical front, ed dmx does his thin sounding
electro-cliche thang again, to very forgettable effect. and when ed
himself takes to the mic, well... if you didn't say to yourself 'EAST 17'
straight away, well shame on you, because that is exactly what it sounds
like. the 'respect-baby-gold-medallion-baggy-pants-goatee-beard-sex-god'
way he delivers these completely crappy lyrics is really quite funny, but
you feel a bit uneasy because maybe he IS really doing it seriously. if ed
(and rephlex) are doing this for real, then i'll bet a milion quid that
ed's surname is wilson-clarridge, because nepotism is about the only way
this cheese could have seen the light of day. the plot thickens when you
listen to the lp, as on sides c and d there are some really quite good
tracks, tracks that actually have some depth to them, so in all likelihood
the whole thing isn't a deliberately crap attempt.. worrying
my white label lp came with a promotional poster (displaying most of the
rephlex catalogue - lovely), and a rephlex car window sticker (even more
lovely..)
so as not to sound like a completely negative bastard in this post, the
records i bought which i liked include - likemind 002 (FUCK ME WHAT A
RECORD, AT LAST I HAVE THIS WORK OF GENIUS) - ron trent 'altered states'
(IN AWE..) - unique 'what i got is what you need' (SUBLIME ISN'T THE WORD)
and, erm, well, some other stuff too
cheerio!
np - my house (on the nile) - egyptian lover