Take that Economists!

Found $10 on the street this morning. Picked it up. Take that Economists!

Terry Francis - Fabric 02

Terry Francis - Fabric 02 This one is a miss. It’s not interesting enough to be listening music. It’s also not fast or energetic enough to be good running music or gaming music. So all in all it’s in an anti-sweet spot.

One More Time by Daft Punk

I randomly generated a song to review tonight and as luck would have it, I got one more time by Daft Punk which is number 13 on RA's list of the top hundred tracks of the 2000s. What a layup when it comes to writing a review! It's not minimalist, it's not tricky, it's not 20 minutes long, and it's a song which we have all likely heard a few times before and are already familiar with. The song is great, it's upbeat, it's energetic, celebratory, it moves. It may not be a pop song in every sense of the word, but its certainly pop song in most positive senses of the word. Check it out, and you've already heard, check it out again.

Cut / Copy Fabric 29

Sunday I decided to do something a little bit different; instead of looking at a track from the top hundred, I checked out a mix, Fabric live 29 by Cut Copy. 

I picked this mix from cut copy for 4 main reasons. 

First, Cut / Copy seems to have credibility with RA, they have one of the top hundred albums of all of the 2000s. 

Secondly, and the many indie rock fans will appreciate this, Cut / Copy also seems have credibility with pitchfork.  In Ghost Colors was their top 4th album in 2008. 

Institutional concerns aside, the two main reasons I picked this mix versus other mixes was that it featured a few songs I wanted to hear. There was a techno remix of a Faint song that I like, so I was interested to see how that sounded. There was also a song by Allison Goldfrapp, who provides guest vocals on one of my favorite songs, so I'm generally interested in hearing some of her solo work. 

I liked the mix, but ironically, not for either of the songs I expected to. The Faint remix went in a totally different direction than the original, and the Goldfrapp remix was unexciting. 

That said, overall, the mix was surprisingly good. On a music review website, there will be everything on the site, then a subset that the site actively plugs or promotes (eg best new music), and among those a few albums will be truly great. This is not one of the truly greats, but its better than the median plugged album and so its worth checking out if you would check out something that gets plugged. 

The songs towards the front half of the mix are a little slower and sometimes a bit less interesting than the back half, but several are still good and worth hearing.  The mix really gets going about a third in when it speeds up and starts using shorter cuts (1-3 minutes averaging 2) between songs. Once it gets rolling the mix has a great flow to it with high energy and really nice transitions so that it feels like a long constantly evolving song rather than a bunch of tracks. I'd say the high point of the mix is "the acid never lies" and the songs immediately surrounding it, but the effect there will be better in context. 

If you don't have time for the whole album, you could probably start at Face to Face (track 10) and listen through Omega man, although you would miss some good stuff that way. 

Either way, check out the mix, make sure it's playing in order not on shuffle, listen to it while doing something active and high energy, and play somewhat loud. 

Shackleton -- Blood On My Hands (Ricardo Villalobos mix)

Blood on my hands, Ricardo Villalobos Remix is number 27 on RA's list of the top hundred of tracks of the 00s.

In contrast to my fairly negative review of Watamu Beach, this track is minimalism I can support.

With an avowedly minimalist stance and a clock time just shy of 19 minutes one might worry that this sprawling doom laden track could easily get boring, but it really never does thanks to a few techniques.

In terms of overall impression the style of the song sits reminds me of something between Burning from the Inside and Brian Eno's ambient works, although obviously as a techno song it's faster and more beaty and totally different than either of them.

Eno always described his goal making ambient music as producing music that rewards but does not demand attention or in another phrasing, music that can be listened to it at any level of attention. Blood on my hands succeeds along that line and for the most part it's pretty easy to just kind of have this on in the background while you're working or doing something else (except for a few moments, some of the vocals are pretty arresting). That said, anytime you pay attention, interesting things are happening. Additional instruments / beats are moving in and out, elements are building up or slowly fading, atmospheric effects and sounds are used. Although I mentioned that the song reminded me of Burning from the Inside at a macro level, at a micro level it's totally different. Rather than aim for minimalism through repetition, this track is shockingly varied when you zoom in and its constantly changing and doing things that are subtly different than what it's done before.


 

Watamu Beach by Sebbo (Moritz von Oswald remix)

My first randomly selected song for review is Watamu Beach by Sebbo (Moritz von Oswald remix), number 94 on RA's top 100 tracks. Its also my first negative review. So I'm a fair guy, I really try to take songs in the most charitable interpretation possible. So I'll say that I probably just don't get the song. It may well be good and I'm at fault for not "getting it," but man this is one of the least engaging songs I've ever encountered. I couldn't even give you holistic impression of the entire thing. It's over 10 minutes and really despite multiple tries (all in good faith) I was not able to pay attention for the entire 10 minutes until I played it very loud. There's just not enough happening. I appreciate minimalism, and I appreciate restraint, I really do, I'm fan of being understated but its not working for me here.

My rating system (as applied to techno)

I don't presently give out numbered ratings because the goal of this series is to be exploratory rather than judgmental.  A large part of what I'm doing is exploring genres I don't know anything about, or at least don't know much about. So an attempt at fine grained ratings would be inappropriate. 

For people who are looking for some kind of evaluation, I'll point out that every post has tags / labels.  For content I endorse, which is pretty much everything so far, the label section contains a '+ ' tag.  For content that I'm actively not recommending (one coming up very soon) the labels will include a '-' tag.  It's possible that later on when I'm talking about stuff where I'm more knowledgeable or have a firm view on, I'll make it more precise ratings. For now, discussion will mostly be qualitative.