SINGLE REVIEW: Art collective made-up of smart geeks is the quick high-level on Japan Soul. They have theorized that the beginning of the end started on or around 911 and life as we knew it in the 80’s has been spiraling out of control ever since. Their latest video/single shows us drones monitoring our every move with the track “Hey Yah Hey”. Apocalyptic yes. True? Probably.
Music pulp fiction and future storytelling is the great canvas that these brooklyn manipulators of sound have decided to tell on their dance pop release Plastic Utopia. This is the forth tease but no doubt in age of being able cut–n-paste our errors and revise your intention until it’s perfect here is another slice from the full release. So we’re sure it will sound as utopian and futuristically art-camp as they have shown previously. That is the irony of this all. When electronic music was still done to tape and mixed in analog you could tell there was a human element. It was man and the machine and his ability to reproduce things. So it’s the kind of thing if you have been revising history (as you work) it’s hard to wonder what is truth is even as it happens. The vocals are pitch processed with un-singable parts and with so many layers we’re always wondering if enough is enough already but hey we don’t have to try and reproduce things live. This is the magic of musical editing and the job a of a live band. Hell they could press a button and go from there or just let the DJ do the work. Anyway, enough of the semantics of this. The previous cut “transparent” was more on the Roxy Music side of things which shows more of instrument abilities but in all a good combo of the genre that started with kraftwerk and then co-opted by everyone. Regardless these dream pop rebels make good music and the lyrics are working to tell you real time what is happening as your every move is tracked by weird drones. I’m not sure why everybody would need to be tracked. That would be ridiculous like trying to read all of our email and making sense of it all. Oh Wait? Um, check them out.
BONUS STUFF: Computer World(“Computerwelt”) MP3 by Kraftworks/t (1981) Wonderdrug MP3 by APB from Cure for the Blues (Link Records 1986)
We have no clue what Aabenbaringen over aaskammen means...
ALBUM REVIEW: Ok we lie, it’s Norwegian for roughly the “revelation over the mountain” but after a whole slew of singles this is technically their first end to end record after releasing piles of singles. I of course because I technically live in a cave on the weekend and during the week untangle a mountain of real work related riddles & sniglets it’s no surprise i never heard of them but thankfully I’m on Polyvinyl’s distro list so some sort of culture does make it my way. In order to describe this group we’ll need to take you into our 80’s time machine bit by bit. In order to confirm what the big corporate mags are onto. Quickly line-up if your a Kid A Moon Safari or Kraftwerk fan. We’re going take you a little deeper but not Autobahn deep (Ok maybe that is another lie). We’re going to keep it to one hot summer in 1986 or 88 and my Walkman was playing a couple OMD tracks, a bunch of Scottish songs by APB and even some DM. I know a girlfriend was making me listen to Yaz and I countered with APB. Anyway, Electronic pop is the kind of music that you either hate or like it very little as much as you do meaningless anagrams which happens to be another language. There is certain sense of soundscape artistry that vocalist Ketil Kinden Endresen has explained is a “result of them expanding their palette”. We’re not all about the grunge on the RS blog but however you want to explain these Casiokids make some pretty good ecstatic music. We get it. One day it will be re-interpreted music for time travel. We do think their is a need for analog electro pop music and just spacing-out in general with the sweet sounds of Casio’s holding down those giant monotone notes. Enjoy.
Det haster! MP3 by CasioKids from Aabenbaringen Over Aaskammen
Something about this bands sounds man: Shoot You Down MP3 APB
Da Da Da MP3 by Trio (Ich Lieb Dich Nitch Du)- 1982
Once punk got started major innovations were happening all over the place as early as it began in the 70’s. Wire were among the musical scientists who experimented with short and long form along with kraftwerk and Gang of Four. On Tuesday April 2011 they will be playing for the first time live on wfmu’s Brian Turner’s radio show between 3-6pm est. Be sure to tune in as they resurrect punk on the airwaves. Their third album 154 is among the trilogy of their break-out experimentation that pushed what art music could be. While Gang of Four were like political mechanics and Kraftwerk the robot space makers — Wire were the sonic mixers making unique pastiches of keyboards and distortion unique from to song to song – some fast some slow. On their first album you were lucky to find anything over a minute long.
Recent Comments