Take "Alroy Road Tracks" and compare it to, say, Wagon Christ or the latest
Dego thing, umm, what was it... "Jacob's Optical Whatever". It is
interesting to note, in such a comparison, the differences between "real"
jazz and the "jazzy" lounge-70's-cheese type stuff. Whereas JOS and
Plug/Wagon Christ (less so on the Plug 2 though) tend to merely incorporate
elements of jazz musical style into their records, i.e. sampling or playing
chords/instruments/basslines/keyboardlines, etc. in such a way so as to
approximate a sound that most people, upon hearing it, will recognize as
"jazz", and thus think "wow this is tha bomb!" or something along those
lines (as I often do), it is not in the pure sense of the word, the cheifly
improvisational music I think of when I think "jazz", rather, it is an
aprroximation of the popularized soul/70's funk form of the style. This is
neat for sure, but the "Alroy Road Tracks" is the only record of "Jazzy"
idm/d&b that I have that goes into what I would consider "jazz" territory,
and by this I do not mean a mwere label of the music, but something more.
Mr. Square Pusher captures the improvisational, raw element of music, the
anti-classical structure that I consider to be jazz. Whereas this is very
artistic and avant-garde (as practically no one else has tried it in the
idm/d&b world), it also somewhat decreases the general appeal of the
record, somewhat limiting its audience in scope. But hey I think it's
genius, and that's all that matters.
And just to be like everyone else....
Being played right now on the food mixer (set to puree, of course):
Subtropic's "Wild Card" ep with whipped cream on top and rasberry frosting.