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Getting Instrumental, Part III

THIS IS THE END MY FRIEND

These final two reviews in this series essentially ignore the rules laid out by the title of the feature, but just a little bit.

WOOLFY VS. PROJECTIONS
The Astral Projections of Starlight
(Permanent Vacation)
In the 1990s this would have been alternately derided and embraced as boutique music -- that broadly defined electronic music that included other vaporous genres such as downtempo, chillout (shudder) and lounge. A programmed bass foundation, muted beats and swells of synth chords make good on the vaguely new-age/prog look of the cover art and album title. But the Fender Rhodes, occasional Euro-soul vocals and one-chord vamp guitar (heavy on the wah-wah pedal) gives Astral Projections just enough urban soul to make the rotation at a swanky clothing store. Contextually, pills and thrills from the night before hurls many club kids into the arms of this sort of come-down music. For the rest of us, the impression fades as quickly as the ink-stamp on our wrists. However, "Neeve" feels distinctly like a minimalist variation on The Rolling Stones' "Miss You." Weird, huh?

Reference materials: Both Woolfy and Projections serve in the Los Angeles soul-funk collective Orgone. So if the cosmic sounds of Astral Projections feels too scrubbed, Orgone is messier and more immediate.



CIRCLE RESEARCH
Who?
(Melting Pot Music)
Two Canadians take the Beat Konducta/Donuts style of public audition/audio sketchbook to a logical hip-hop-will-eat-itself conclusion. The snake has eaten its tail, and said tail is delicous. But where Madlib, J Dilla (and Oh No, and so many others) have dipped deep into their record collections for source material, Astro and Nik T, the duo comprising Circle Research, mined the major hits of hip-hop's Golden Age. So instead of sending the heads scrambling to find out which obscure jazz break these men looped, they're letting nearly everybody play "name the sampled sample." Clipping Biz Markie's shocked declaration from "Just a Friend" to make the track "Oh Snap!" barely scratches the surface of how Who? works. Yes, these 36 mini-tracks are pieced together from some of the most recognizable rap hits of the late '80s and early '90s, but they didn't just grab the hooks or make a stunted mixtape. Call it micro-remixing.


Reference material: Circle Research might be too heady for dance-ready fans of Girl Talk's extended mash-ups. Anyone who gobbles up Madlib's Beat Konducta volumes, or MF DOOM's Special Herbs series will find much to ingest here.

WWDOOSV (Part V)

BURNING BABYLON
Beat Beat Beat
(Sound Shack)
A fifth LP of one-man dub-reggae creations from Slade Anderson, a metal dude gone to seed. It's all solid, if unremarkable, dub and roots music in the vein of Ticklah and McPullish, two more one-man dub plate makers of the modern age. Like other musicians working in definitive genres inexorably linked to the era in which the music was first divined, Anderson's dub can't top the first and second generation dub wizards. That he's doing it well is what matters.
Standouts: "Sproing-a-Dub" and the ska outing "Manuka Skank"
Released: August
myspace.com/burningbabylon

4HERO
... mixing
(Sonar Kollektiv)
Prefab mixes from crate diggers usually offer a new discovery or three that leads to further investigation. And done well, the completed collage can surprise in terms of what a given DJ wants us to hear when their choices are documented this way. But here's something weird. This entry in the Sonar Kollektiv Mixing DJ series, from Dego of the German nu-soul duo 4Hero, bears an eerie resemblance to The Typing Monkey's own record collection. That's not a boast -- just, what are the chances? Our only regret is the promo copy is unmixed and we want to know how Dego transitions between a few of these cuts.
Standouts: Raymond Scott's "Lightworks" and the SA-RA remix of Roy Hargrove's "On the One"
Released: Aug 12
myspace.com/4hero

TITTSWORTH
Twelve Steps
(Plant Music)
A Baltimore DJ/producer who squeezes a tiny bit more from his hometown's brand of dance music, known as "gutter." Tittsworth crafts his own boozy rhythmic repetitions, ending up with an aggressive blend of techno and hip-hop that actually encourages dancing. Pity the MCs and vocalists he enlists don't do much more than the usual calls to getting drunk and copulating. (Not bad goals, mind, but there are more creative ways to state those intentions.) As a consequence, the instrumentals leave a more pleasant aftertaste, and don't remind anyone over the age of 25 that hangover and regret are the ultimate destination the rest of the album is headed toward.
Standouts: "4:21" and "Bumpin'" ... Kid Sister and Paserock do well by "WTF" too.
Released: Aug 12
myspace.com/titts

Bonus review!
TITTSWORTH
The John McCain Mix
(Self-released)
Offered as free download when Twelve Steps was released, McCain Mix won't beat Diplo or Girl Talk at their own 12-bar cut-up game. Tittsworth executes a few actual remixes, versus the common gutter practice of doubling an existing club beat with overdriven drum machines (ahem, Aaron LaCrate). A tweaking of Hall & Oates' "I Can't Go for That" gives the best evidence yet that gutter is a close relative of those high NRG mixes of '80s hits. The closing mash-up of Lil Wayne's embarrassingly unerotic "Lollipop" and the Wham! slow-dance chestnut "Careless Whisper" manages to add a tiny bit of class to the former without disgracing the latter.

You Don't Have to Read This

A Pre(r)amble On Sports and Music
At first glance, house music and the Summer Olympic Games seem to have little in common. But there are some parallels that aren't too much of stretch.

1. Context
The Typing Monkey has never attended the Olympics (well, except for that awkward jaunt to Moscow in summer 1980 -- so embarrassing) but we can imagine how thrilling it must be to witness firsthand some of the world's greatest athletes in action.

Likewise, house can be genuinely exciting when the listener is there, in person, on a dancefloor, with all the appropriate sensory cues the genre was created for.

2. Expertise
A frequent complaint about house, and electronic dance music in general, involves some iteration of the "I could do that" criticism. Any dork can buy a laptop (or a sequencer, drum machine and synthesizer) and make a 4/4 beat with some bass squiggles. But those who are good at it, and have put in the time and effort to get good, are going to leave lesser musicians at the starting line.

Similarly, most of us can run, but we're not about to get up and make a showing at the 100-yard dash time trials. We sit back and marvel at the people who've found they were built to do amazing physical feats.

3. Accessibility
Even non-sports fans can find something of interest at the Olympics. And there's that whole "uniting diverse cultures" aspect to the competition that remind us that a global superpower can lose to a third world nation when we're equalized by our basic human abilities.

In the same way, electronic dance music is a sort of international unifier. Though it has the advantage of being enabled by technology, it's difficult to site another style of music that's been so quickly picked up by so many cultures.

What does all of this lead into? Nothing more than the following review of a two-disc house compilation. (Click the link, or scroll down a smidge.)

... In Order to Understand This:

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Great Summer Games Stuff: A Tribute to Human Rights
(Great Stuff)
Listening to Great Summer Games Stuff is like watching the Olympics on television. If you're a house-music glutton, this compilation mainlines the ceaseless kick drum for the duration of two globe-spanning discs. A more casual listener, like the average Olympics viewer, passively pays attention but perks up when something remarkable happens.

Disc one's first gold medal comes from Turkey's Butch. The track screws with expectations by slowing the beat down and dropping it out entirely, usually by pitch-bending the samples of locale-appropriate woodwinds as if they're melting.

A silver medal goes to Germany's Swen Weber for pushing a brisk hi-hat scuffle to the forefront and countering a buzzing bassline with some sort of marching-band anthem the fades in and out like a passing parade.

Disc two offers more to grab our interest, with an almost-ambient opener from Japan's Tokyo Black Star. [Who is actually French native Alex Prat -- ed.]

Greek techno DJ/procuder Mihalis Safras gets top honors for his contribution that combines a minimal, watery rhythm with a weird guitar break that shouldn't fit, but does -- even when it takes over and drapes cinematic shadow over the proceedings.

Romania's OK Corral do right too, with a playful 8-bit number. They get bonus points for claiming to be from Bucharest, circa the year 2259.

England, New Zealand and Australia all bring the big, dumb fun, with a blaring rave/big beat throwback from Atomic Hooligan, a glorious mess by Greg Churchill, and a track by Tommy Trash that ignores genre divisions the way a good pop construction should.

The connection to both the Olympics and human rights feels tenuous, but if any of The Typing Monkey's theory (see above) holds water, maybe a DJ really can save a life. It's no less believable than the fact that every few years we ignore continuing global strife in order to play a bunch of games.

Reference materials: Click on the artist links in the review, and see if you find something to suit your fancy. Or snoop around the Great Summer Games Stuff tack list for yourself.

European Space Program

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Elaste Vol. 2: Space Disco

Tom Wieland, of digital-dub outfit 7 Samurai and techno-soul band Panoptikum, put together this worthy follow up to DJ Mooner's excellent inaugural Elaste collection.

Roaming the expanse of cosmic/space disco, Wieland concentrates on early '80s Euro soul -- a sound rooted in the brisk funk of prime '70s American disco but reaching toward futuristic grooves with the help of analog synthesizers where the horns and strings would normally be.

The mix opens strong with five solid disco workouts. But Elaste 2 gets really interesting at track six, "Sundance." The song, by Curt Cress, a German session drummer with a primarily jazz and prog-rock résumé, feels like a drum battle in which only one of the combatants is human.

Another workaday musician, English library composer Alan Hawkshaw, makes a good showing with "The Speed of Sound" -- a muscular bit of '70s cop-show funk that surges forward on the dual power of a Fender Rhodes and Clavinet.

Please note, The Typing Monkey staff put this mix to the test by setting the office CD player on random. After repeat plays, it never failed to play tracks 12 and 13 together, as they are meant to be.

Those tracks are The Vulcans' "Star Trek"-- a nifty, Moog-heavy reggae instrumental -- and Tony Allen's "NEPA Dance Dub." The latter finds the Fela Kuti drummer issuing a tense, syncopated Afro-funk heavy on the kind of simple repetition that Talking Heads employed.

Wieland manages to sneak in a couple Panoptikum cuts without breaking the mood, but that's not a big surprise given the style of music. Elaste 2 has no real party crashers, though the most dazzling moments shine much brighter than the rest. Either way, there's plenty to chew on here.

Reference materials: If you enjoy the sounds on Elaste 2, do spend some time investigating the Strut label, the efforts of the D*I*R*T*Y collective and, as if we don't hype it enough, the Smalltown Supersound label.

Better By Half

MUNK
Cloudbuster
(Gomma)
Given some of the song titles, it's not hard to imagine Munk's tunes as the soundtrack to an obscure fantasty film with a cult following. "Monopteros", "Psycho Magic" and "The Knights of Heliopolis" all inspire images of occult worlds where the barrier between technology and witchcraft is permeable.

That's especially true of the final cut ("Knights …") which begins with the same rigid kick drum that powers most of Cloudbuster. But the damp electronics and Mellotron-like flutes signal altered states of consciousness. A brief celebratory break with hi-hat and disco bass eventually decays into one final minute of rattling drone.

If this were an actual LP, side two beats side one, no contest. The two opening tracks -- "Live Fast! Die Old!" and "Down in L.A." indulge in the kind of coarse, nightlife-posturing that inspires scoffs from those who think electronic dance music is nonsense.

Guest vocalist Asia Argento doesn't do anything interesting during her three appearances. Matty Safer of The Rapture makes a better showing by playing bass on two songs -- his work in "The Rat Race" nails down a rhythmic strut reminiscent of Soft Cell's version of "Tainted Love."

Despite the 1:1 ratio of compelling to ho-hum, there's enough to Cloudbuster, Munk's second full length, to prompt The Typing Monkey to check out his 2006 debut LP Aperitivo.

Reference materials: Though there isn't an obvious musical correlation, for some reason the second half of Cloudbuster brings to mind the work of both David Shire and Alain Goraguer.

Bonus fun facts: Clearly Mathias Modica, the man behind Munk, cherry picks his references from the best of mythology both modern and ancient. Check out the Wikipedia entry for Heliopolis and then look at this picture of a monopteros in a park in München.

Dipping a Toe In

VARIOUS ARTISTS
Ghotsly Swim
(Ghostly International/Adult Swim)
The highs are very high. The lows -- eh, not so much. As a label showcase, Ghostly Swim brings the goods, giving curious Adult Swim viewers a chance to kick the tires of one of the most reputable electronic music labels in the United States. The 19-track collection hits a sweet spot about half the time. That's not a bad return for a promotional freebie.

The Chaps' "Carlos Walter Wendy Stanley" does little for the reputation of smarty-pants electro-pop. "Hit and Run" by Kill Memory Crash sounds silly and dated, like the industrial-lite goth of the 1980s that paved the way for Nine Inch Nails. And The Typing Monkey still can't understand what's so exciting about the music of Ghostly co-founder Matthew Dear.

Of course Dabrye's retro-futurist hip-hop ("Temper") satisfies. But Deastro's "Light Powered" and School of Seven Bells' "Chain" share top billing. The former recalls vintage sci-fi theme music in the vein of Dr. Who; the latter has twin-sister vocalists Alejandra and Claudia Deheza lamenting through a vocoder about being unable to remember their dreams lately, while big square-wave synths cascade behind them.

The Ghostly artists who follow ambient techno (Tycho), cosmic disco (Dark Party, Cepia) or anxious techno and house muses (The Reflecting Skin, JDSY) fare best. And being that this music is entirely free, anybody who's read this far should just go download Ghostly Swim and have at it.

As for Adult Swim -- this almost makes up for unleashing another season of Assy McGee on us. We said almost.

Reference materials: If you find things on Ghostly Swim to enjoy, please seek out other recordings by those artists via Ghostly Int'l. But here's a short list of non-Ghostly musicians with similar appeal ...

diskJokke, David Last, Leyode, Bjorn Torske and TRS-80

Trimetric Projection

CRYSTAL CASTLES
Crystal Castles
(Last Gang)
This Toronto duo builds decayed synth-pop using mostly 8-bit tones and uncomplicated house rhythms. Crystal Castles' founder Ethan Kath hasn't removed the human element entirely, but vocals are usually filtered or sampled and chopped enough to blend into the electronics.

Some of the least engaging tracks ("xxzxcuzx me" and "Love and Caring" especially) are those where singer Alice Glass gets a more traditional vocal placement out in front of the music. The mic distortion, combined with her punk vocal style, grates against the deceptively fragile instrumentation.

"Courtship Dating" puts Glass' voice to great use with a call-and-response chorus that makes her sound every bit like the urban waif she costumes herself as. Whatever she's singing -- lyrics are nearly indecipherable throughout -- it sounds like an impromptu game of tag in an abandoned building.

The songs that play at digital hardcore or industrial abrasiveness can't escape the trilling electronic burbles that Kath achieves through a keyboard rigged with an Atari 5200 game system sound chip. His invention lends every song a sort of glistening delicacy, no matter how many beefy octave bassline foundations he pours.

Crystal Castles comprises mostly previously released singles and an EP, which isn't a complaint. It's nice to have all this stuff in one place, even if the collection skids into monotony in the third act.

However, the band smartly offers a twist ending by closing their debut LP with "Tell Me What to Swallow" -- a guitar-led piece overcast with Glass' reverbed and mostly wordless vocal blending into pastel washes of synthesizer chords.

Reference materials: Ever wish that early OMD and Fad Gadget had been roped into collaborating on a record using only a Roland TB-303 and a broken Frogger console? Neither have we, but strangely enough that's not far from Crystal Castles. And stranger still, it works.