I just flew in from the coast, and boy are my arms tired. Boston has
really good prices on CDs. Much better than San Francisco.
HAUJOBB - Matrix
I said that I found Haujobb's album "Solutions For A Small Planet"
maddening because it combined some incredibly interesting musical
ideas with some incredibly lame and cliched vocal ideas. Well, this
is a real treat for me because Matrix is almost entirely instrumental,
and pretty much almost entirely great. I don't even know where to
start in describing it. Yeah, it's kinda technoish. Yeah, there's
sounds that sorta make me think of jungle in places (but not like any
other jungle I know). It's full of unique sounds and melodies. Kinda
like Future Sound Of London's dark twin perhaps? Disc One combines 8
haujobb originals with 4 outside remixes, and it's all good. Only
Steril's remix sounds kinda out of place with a real dancefloor drum
loop and "i said it before and i'll say it again" looping over and
over again. And, feeding nicely into our recent threads about
stealing other people's sounds, disc two is a sample CD full of
interesting and weird noises for you to plunder! I highly recommend
checking this out.
PLATEAU - Music For Grass Bars
It's official: Subconscious is my favorite label of 1997. While
Skinny Puppy was probably my all time favorite thing in the late
80's/early 90's, i always wished they'd head in a more techno
direction. Well, this album, which is a collaboration between Phil
(Philth) Western, cEVIN Key and Anthony Valcic, gives me what I wished
for. It's all very 909-driven detroity mellow techno. Outstanding
production, of course, with tons of sonic trickery dressing up even
the most static of drum patterns. The overall mood reminds me of a
less abrasive version of X-102 Discovers The Rings Of Saturn. Plus
the cover art has to be seen to be believed. Oh yeah, and don't
forget to look under the CD tray as well.
SYNAESTHESIA - Ephemeral
This is yet another album by the guys from Front Line Assembly. When
their Delerium project stopped being interesting ambient electronic
music and turned into an Enigma wanna-be, they moved the Delerium
brand name to Synaesthesia. Why they just didn't start Synaesthesia
with the bad vocal disco and keep Delerium as it was, I have no idea.
Anyway, this is a wonderful moody little work with lots of wispy pads
and ominous string washes and the trademark arpeggiating melody lines.
Gentle ethnic or tribal beats percolate underneath although some
tracks use unfortunately overworked drum loops. Vaguely remiscent of
Muslimgauze in that it strives for an easternish feel (but sans
confrontational attitude). Nothing new or groundbreaking but a mostly
pleasant and listenable hour.
HAL feat GILLIAN ANDERSON - Extremis
Ok, let's get the obvious out of the way: Gillian Anderson is dead
sexy. I admit that's part of the reason I bought this, when deep down
I suspected it would be incredibly cheesy. The other reason was that
it only cost $3. The final reason (and real deal-clincher) was that
there's a Download remix on it. So... well, it's pretty damn cheesy.
The song itself is actually kinda neat, with some cool sounds, but
those lyrics... ugh. Gillian tries her best but what can you do with
stuff like "the melting of minds/a cerebral mesh/a union of liquid/and
virtual flesh". Minus 10 points for gratuitous use of the word
"virtual". Plus 10, however, for using the phrase "paradigm shift"
(which is a Subconscious Records reference) later in the track...
Anyway, the remixes are by Qattara and Download. Qattara contribute a
clubby poppy dance version. Not terrible, not great. The Download
mix is, of course, sheer genius. Real fast thwippy electro beats with
processed vox until it explodes into mental drum loop land and then
gets just plain wacko with Sherwood-esque percussion blasts. Yummy
chaos, Download style. Ooh baby. Did I mention that Gillian Anderson
is dead sexy?
LEE "SCRATCH" PERRY + MAD PROFESSOR/DOUGIE DIGITAL/JUGGLER -
Super Ape Inna Jungle
Another one of these wacko Ariwa CDs that takes a bunch of old catalog
reggae tracks and junglizes them, with a few Mad Professor dub mixes
thrown in for variety. Anybody with any clue about reggae will
immediately understand that Scratch is just THE voice to stick over
mad ragga jungle beats. The guy is about a billion years old and
weird as fuck. He's also the coolest machine being to take human form
and become a demented reggae MC. Yeeeeeha! The jungle tracks are all
super bass heavy dancefloor rinseouts with lots of Scratch's demented
vocalizings peppered about liberally. Satellite bleeps and dub
effects for flavoring. I am not a human being, indeed.
DJ SHADOW - Endtroducing...
Has its moments, for sure. "The Numbers Song" is quite excellent.
However, a lot of it is just kinda warbly 70's funk/soul/r&b loops
recycled with no apparent purpose or intent. I don't know why he's
getting this rep as the Hendrix of the Sampler, or whatever bullshit
PR phrase they're using. Yeah, he's good, but not even in the same
solar system as some of my real sampling heroes (public enemy & meat
beat manifesto being the top 2, basically.)
ORB - Asylum
Two discs of remixes from Blood Sugar (boring), Andrea Parker (good
but not too different from the original), Kris Needs (silly), Thomas
Fehlmann (ok) and Soul Catcher (boring). None are much of an
improvement on the original album version. I really gotta kick the
Orb completist habit now. The promo-only Orbscure Trax has MUCH
better remixes, most being done by the band themselves.
VARIOUS - Brassic Beats
A nice change from the usual sleep-inducing trip hop bullshit, this is
a collection of more upbeat, funkier offerings from Skint Records.
True, some of these fall into the trip hop trap of boring loops driven
straight into the ground. However, overall there's enough hustle to
keep even the most MTV-damaged attention span happy. Standouts
include: Midfield General (quoth my wife "this sounds like you."), Req
(weird flanging filtering sucking beat mania) and Fatboy Slim (loops
for lindy chugs along nicely). Not groundbreaking but a pleasant
listen.
SPRING HEEL JACK - 68 Million Shades
Really nice jungle that avoids falling into a lot of the cliches and
traps. They program a lot of the drums instead of using loops. They
use guitars and pianos. Sometimes they even use strings and sax,
providing a weird demented martin denny gone jungle thing. Definitely
worth your time.
KEN ISHII - Jelly Tones
Found it cheap (cheap is relative when talking about R&S though, of
course), loved "Extra" as seen on AMP, so decided to grab it. "Extra"
is the best track by a longshot, unfortunately. The rest of it wants
to be some kind of moody Detroit vibe with at least a gentlemanly
attempt at coming up with some new sounds, but the tracks just kinda
limp along without really ever reaching boiling point. Grrrr.
--
Jon Drukman jsd@gamespot.com SpotMedia Communications
...I was an infinitely hot and dense dot...