quoted 8 lines On Wed, 5 Jul 1995, Pete Ashdown wrote:
>On Wed, 5 Jul 1995, Pete Ashdown wrote:
>
>> >>deepforest-- some 1 PLEAZ review thee new album.
>>
>> >a statement of fact:
>> >I own a (very small) record store where it is our policy to let people
>> >listen to an album before purchasing it. I have yet to sell one copy of the
>> >new Deep Forest. I sold plenty of the first one. Draw your own
conclusions...
quoted 4 lines My short review:
>>
>> My short review:
>>
>> TELL THOSE DAMN BULGARIANS TO SHUT UP!
Actually, as I thought I said before, most of the music on this album is
taken from gypsy traditions,and the one song called "Bulgarian Melody" does
not even resemble one (a Bulgarian melody, that is)to me. I think that it is
the arrangement that bothers me the most. Yes, the Bulgarian Women's Choir
do perform arrangements of "Bulgarian Melodies" also, but these arrangements
seem to expand on what is already there. This arrangement (Deep Forest)
seems to sterilize the music. (Risking putting my foot in my mouth...)It
seems also that the performer is not as familiar with the Bulgarian vocal
tradition as say, Lisa Gerrard or Elisabeth Fraser.
quoted 1 line I believe that the only sample subjects they were able to find in the
>> I believe that the only sample subjects they were able to find in the
region were >>either vagrants, senior citizens, and/or victims of severe
indigestion. 1/10
Many people would describe the gypsies this way...
quoted 4 lines I refuse to get the album because I think the whole project is a really
>I refuse to get the album because I think the whole project is a really
>explioitive neo-colonialist hunk of shit. The idea of taking all these
>voices and decontextualizing them and then placing them within a feel
>good "multi-cultural" context is really problematic,
Is this really the problem? I mean, many people in the field do similar
things. How many of the Didgeridoo sounds you hear in idm are played by the
artist using the sound? (R James comes immediately to mind...). The problem
for me is that Deep Forest are lifting not samples, but entire melodies and
songs, and giving them a dance beat. This places them on a level with
Vanilla Ice or MC Hammer (remember them?), who just lifted hooks from pop
songs, rapped over them, and called it a new creation. Because the songs
are, for the most part, intact, it belittles them to turn them into dance
hits. If you don't believe me, buy a copy of the "Latcho Drom" soundtrack
(wherefrom are many of these samples)and listen to the original versions of
these songs. There is power and emotion in these recordings that a dance
beat destroys.
For myself, there is some difference between the first and second Deep
Forest albums, and I think it is this: The first album used the voices of
the Baka Pygmies as another instrument or texture in their creations. Voices
were looped, chopped, processed, and mixed to add to what was an original
creation. The new album is a simple discofication of ethnic musics, a sort
of "Stars On Gypsy Laments" (does anybody else remember--and cringe with
that memory--the Stars On 45?).
Ah, finally! I was wondering why the new album irritated me so much, but
never spent the time to think about it.
c
Cody
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