Published by Scott April 27th, 2006
in Album, Review and 2005.
I was listening to college radio the other morning on my way to work, which is something I usually don’t do. Like most people I have to ease my way into the day and usually prefer listening to people talk on NPR while the morning fog lifts from my brain. But the car radio was already switched to that station and a cool unknown song was on so I stuck with it. The next one, also new to me, was a winner too so I happily cruised along with it. And then it hit: one of the most jarring, jaw droppingest songs I’ve heard in a long time grabbed me by the feet and smashed my head against the punk rock. Even at a moderate volume it sounded like my car speakers were shredding and the windows shook from the impossibly low bass without benefit of a subwoofer. “I was born in a witch’s cauldron,” was the only line I could pick out from the distorted, buried-in-the-mix vocals. As if it didn’t already have my attention, the song suddenly launched into an incredibly violent galloping thrash that nearly caused me to drive off the road. Who the hell was this?!?
I missed what the DJ said when she read the set list so I had to do a little sleuthing. I crosschecked unfamiliar artists in rotation at Album 88 with their AMG descriptions and found a likely suspect in Part Chimp. Quite happily I found them at eMusic, checked the samples, made a positive ID, and immediately downloaded the album. The song in question, “War Machines,” and all the rest have been roaring out of my various speaker setups ever since.
I Am Come is about as subtle as a bone cracking kick in the ribs. Take Mogwai at the peek of a crescendo, mix in generous amounts of Sonic Youth’s distinctive tunings and angular playing, recruit a gorilla to play drums with sledgehammers, and you’ve got the grinding rawk juggernaut called Part Chimp. Oh, and turn the amps up until the recording meters shatter! This album’s eleven tracks are amazingly noisy, but not in an off putting or grating way. The band sculpts a very satisfying brand of extreme sonic turbulence. It’s certainly not for everyone but fans of ultra loud and intense rock music will definitely get a thrill.
Not convinced by a review in which I spent two paragraphs relaying an anecdote and only one describing the music? Fortunately the band is streaming two songs from the album on their MySpace page, including the aforementioned “War Machines.”
Published by James April 24th, 2006
in Free Tracks, Album, Review and 2005.
Children of the CPU are definitely hardcore DIY what with sole responsibility for the recording, producing, and distribution of Back To BASIC. They have made the album freely available on their website with the hope that you’ll like it enough to place an order for a physical copy at the low-low price of $12 CDN. Economic ethos aside, it is a refreshingly light electro-pop album where Veronica Rossos’ breathy vocals float over the decidedly retro and chip inspired beats of Cameron Shay, who also contributes some vocals himself. It is a warm analog sounding album, one where the album cover actually captures the spirit of the music from the Cocoa Krispies shag carpet, wood grained TV with actual dials dials and knobs, and Q*Bert on the Atari 2600. I feel a longing for my idealized childhood just looking at it.
“Closer Than You Think” is a poppy number with that bounces along on a decidedly New Wave bass line rounded off by swirling loops of synth arpeggios. It is track that is at home being played over headphones late at night while you lay on your bed staring up at shadows from the street lights flitting about on the ceiling. “Weeping Willow” follows the same trend except that it is built on beats that are more an IDM interpretation of Drum and Bass rhythms where they skitter about but are warm and fat. It also features a hushed duet that slowly works it way around the urgency of the guitar and synth arrangements.
If you like warm beats and dreamy melodies or are a fan of Ladytron, Husky Rescue, or Boards of Canada it is very likely you’ll enjoy Children of the CPU. Back To BASIC is a fun listen that is infused with a spirit of retro-futurism that imparts such a sweet flavor. Go grab it today.
Oh, and big ups to 3hive for finding and posting some tracks from this album. Without their Bloodhound Gang skills Back To BASIC would have flown way under my radar.
Published by James March 30th, 2006
in Album, Review and 2005.
Grinding out under fluorescent lights there are times when you need a hitch in your step en route to the water cooler and the belief that you are the last hope for the streets. Unagi serves up that fantasy with the sleazy camp of Keepin’ It Eel where the sound is drenched in early 80’s Soul, Funk and Hip Hop that has been chopped up and glued back together like a ransom letter your kid brother would send you over your G.I. Joes. It helps to think of Unagi as the younger sibling to DJ Shadow; where Shadow is studious and often filled with gravitas, Unagi is playful, leaping about the cultural landscape of late night television with tongue firmly implanted in cheek.
Keepin It Eel is an album to laugh with, not that it is one long running joke but in that it drops cultural references faster than you can pick them up and it helps that the album is technically solid and does not play like an amateur mashup. “Roper Golf Pro” sees the unlikely pairing of a jaunty piano line swinging and swaying only to be interrupted by a weepy string line that sounds as if it was lifted from a Hart To Hart TV movie and while that reads like a weak arrangement it actually creates kitschy sort of tension that works. the album is full of those moments like the opening moments of “Condorman’s Revenge” and its overblown sax line dramatically declaring that it owns the song only to have the snap and pop of the bass line send it back to vamping.
Sometimes music needs to be fun and that is exactly what Keepin It Eel is and while it can make you laugh and smile it is by no means just a one shot novelty the album has legs. Unagi has some free tracks over at his website including four from this album for your listening pleasure. Give it a shot and put a little swing in your swagger.
Published by James March 9th, 2006
in Free Tracks, Singles, Review and 2005.
The good folks over at 3hive lay bare another band worth your consideration. The Positions are an early 80’s pop revival outfit channeling the work of Phil Spector during the Sixties. Suitably confused? Don’t be! The music is light and charming with the vocalist, Nicole Stoops, sounding very much like a young Belinda Carlisle and the band working the arrangement in a clean meticulous manner. The single, “Back To Me“, is a refreshing piece, particularly after all the Hip Hop and Alt-Country I have been swimming in as of late. Definitely worth your consideration particularly if you like to wax nostalgic about innocent times that likely never existed and you were too young to remember very well; The Postions satisfy this need in me. .
Their debut album, Bliss!, hit the streets in August of last year and can be had over at their website.
Published by James March 1st, 2006
in Album, Review and 2005.
In the past year I’ve been almost exclusively reading science fiction of a forty plus year vintage. Not for any particular reason other than for the simple fact I’ve never really read it before now. Conceptualizations of Bussard ramjets, light sails, nuclear pulse propulsion dance about the pages belying the deep sense of optimism that the Fifties and Sixties held with regards to science and our collective futures. What does Magnetophone’s latest have to do with this? Not much other than the fact it seems to dovetail nicely with the sweet optimism of the writing tempered by the acrid taste of present reality. That and it excels at lurking in the background just below the subconscious.
The Man Who Ate The Man opens sightly deceptive in that the second track, “Kel’s Vintage Thought” is one of these catchy dance punk numbers leading the listener to believe that the album is going to come off as a garage version of Junior Senior. While it is a catchy number it does little to prepare one for the sludgy, ambient soundscapes that follow later in the album, particularly the moody “Motion G” and the Porno For Pyro via Future Sound of London sounding “Without Word”.
There is nothing particularly ground breaking about the album, it is neither offensive nor particularly lovable. It is serviceable and that is sometimes just what you need. It blends the sounds of Nineties psychedelic revivalism with Seventies space rock into a gooey ambient mass. Just about perfect for escapist literature late in the evening which is just what I have been looking for as I thumb through the yellowing pages of musty paperbacks.
Published by James February 22nd, 2006
in Album, Review and 2005.
The thing about J-Live that strikes me the most is his ability to make his words dance. There is a sort of alchemy that takes place when the words move from the page to the mic where they come alive swinging, swaying, and skipping about the beats where other emcees just hold onto the beat to carry them through to the end. J-Live bobs and weaves about it occasionally mockingly as he drops into other voices, other times driving the beat along with his double-time patter. On The Hear After, which dropped in late summer last year, he maintains that ability as well as weaving a multitude of new stories about the New York Philadelphia corridor expounding on social issues as well as relating personal stories such as his time spent teaching in the Brooklyn public school system.
Production on the album is solid as most tracks lock in tightly to the rhymes supporting the emcees, never overpowering them or taking away from their work. “Whoever” has the backing track that stands out the most for me with it swaying Latin rhythms that are evocative of a summer’s afternoon at a Nuyorcian block party. Brass lines punctuate the syllables of the rhymes, timbales add bounce, and all while flutes swirl about like a light breeze. The track is infectious particularly as it rounds the corner to the last bars hammering the chorus home like a band vamping as the finale nears.
Usually, I dislike skits or tracks that are built around the skit concept as they often become tired over repeated listenings however the piece that he put together with his wife, Kola Rock. “Listening” is an intimate number, playing out as a long distance call home where the two trade stanzas, building the threads into a cohesive whole that stresses the importance of listening in order to learn about what has brought them to the place in which they now stand. Kola Rock demonstrates herself as a talented emcee and poet. I am hopeful that her work will see a release of its own in the near future.
The Hear After is not an album for those who are wrapped up in the mindset that Hip-Hop needs to be about slinging rocks and flashing Glocks, as he stresses in “Sidewalks” not everyone is willing to play into stereotypes and on this album he certainly does not pander to the images playing out on MTV. That said, The Hear After is an album that begs to be listened to as J-Live proves himself to be highly literate and an extremely capable emcee.
Published by James February 20th, 2006
in Album, Review and 2005.
This is one of those reviews that I labor over, the sort where I start and stop writing all the while struggling to find the right words to convey my true thoughts. In truth, I was very excited to get my hands on this album and to hear for myself what the buzz was about having soaked myself in the positive press for this album but after repeated listens I find myself conflicted. There are moments that shine, where there is tangible genius, but those moments come at the cost of awkward passages and songs that feel more like very rough sketches rushed out because the album was rapidly approaching it pressing date.
What is leaving me cold on this album is that Rollie Pemberton, Cadence Weapon, does not have a good sense of flow, his rhymes occasionally stumble about awkwardly as he attempts to make the syllables fit into the meter defined by the backing track, it feels unprepared and unpolished. Most of the album he has a laconic delivery that is enveloped by a skittish nervous energy, not unlike Sage Francis but it lacks the sharp literary edge that Francis employs, though that could be chalked up to experience and age as Pemberton is some ten years his junior.
That said it is the beats that truly shine on Breaking Kayfabe as he demonstrates a talent for juxtaposing different instruments and arrangements in unsettling and compelling ways. ” Black Hand” is one of the best examples of this where the opening synth siren, straight out of an early Seventies D-Grade sci-fi movie, gives way to a solid break beat and a jittery guitar line and electric piano loop all of which is nicely tied together by the soft chorus. “Grim Fandango” is another standout track with the shimmering mandolin loop fluttering about a guitar line all supported by sparse drum programming. These are the moments worth reaching in the album and they are the moments that make it worth listening to.
Pemberton has potential and plenty of talent, all of which is evident on this album. While the work is uneven it is still worth a listen if only to see from where his work began. If you are on the fence, a taste of Breaking Kayfabe can be had over at Upper Class Recordings with the track “Sharks“.
