I picked up the 12" of the Boy/Gir E.P. and have these observations:
In an interview around the time of the 'Donkey Rhubarb' E.P. Philip
Glass called Richard James a gifted 'naive' composer. And nowhere is
this more evident than on Girl Boy. Apart from his usual appealing
stuttering take on Drum and Bass, there are several very evocative
tunes. The original 'boy/girl' mix seems to be a piece done with a string
quartet, with an overlay of drum and bass madness.
The famous 'milkman' song illustrates something both a strength and
weakness of Richard Jame's work. The lyrics suggest yet another prank --
the combination of an innocent voice singing about the milkman, combined
with the infantile sexuality of wanting a drink from the milkman's wife's
breasts suggests a certain arrested development.
The remixes on side two are a little more integrated; both Boy/Girl and
the milkman song seem to be lush little ditties, over which a scrim of
D&B twittering is laid. By far my favorite track is the one where
RDJ sings about "beetles in my carpet" in that the synth tracks have a jagged
rhythmic feel that almost degenerates into chaos, yet holds together just
barely. A few listens through and the skittering rhythmic feel comes clear
in your mind and the track feels very novel on the ear.
And as for the singing -- Tom Jones he aint, but there is something very
appealing about his voice, in a Syd Barret, naive acid casualty way.
Especially clever is the way at the end of the milkman song, the vocal sample
is treated with vibrato, so that it gradually goes from a 'sung' sound to
a sampled sound...
And overall, when it comes to melody, I think RDJ may just turn out to be
dangerously great when he figures out what the black keys are for.
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"Stop thinking, and end your problems" -- Tao Te Ching
Home Page, featuring Reagan on Black Velvet, the EMP Compilation CD,
samples of my music, etc
http://soli.inav.net/~kent/
Kent Williams kent@inav.net
CADSI 2651 Crosspark Road Coralville IA 52241
(319) 338 6053 (home)
(319) 626 6700 x 219 (work)
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