Major Lazer - Free the Universe

I first heard Major Lazer several years ago.  When this happened, I wasn't even trying to listen to him.  I was just doing what I do during every waking moment of my life, which is clicking links on Reddit.  This happened to be the link I clicked on at that moment:

I laughed...a lot, but I was also intensely confused, and somewhat offended by the obnoxious stupidity of this video.  "Who created this?" I wondered.  Who would have the audacity to make something so "pants on head" retarded and how did he make it so catchy? Major lazer has taken club music by storm with this obnoxious, Caribbean bro-step so intensely that you can almost guarantee you will hear him next time you're getting down at a nightclub.

When this happens, you will definitely know. Diplo and Switch, the producers who used to comprise Major Lazer, have consistently been able to put themselves ahead of the mainstream pop music by making their music at least as offbeat and insane, as it is catchy and well produced.  Also, their choice of features, musicians famous for making music in the genres Major Lazer was more or less lampooning, gave their music a sense of integrity rather than mockery.  Now Switch is off the project though, and Diplo has continued it solo on the new album Free the Universe.

With Switch leaving, I feel like a sense of restraint and focus has also left Major Lazer, which makes the project feel more insincere.  For instance, Amber Coffman's voice on "Get Free" is uplifting, like a sunrise over the Serengeti, but the lyrical themes about government oppression are simply unbelievable coming from a Texan-born singer and a British producer.  In this respect, the other reggae track, "Jessica," sung by Ezra Koenig from Vampire Weekend, feels much more unassuming.  Even though it is silly, it's still very likable.

Just Like Ezra Koenig is!

The rest of the album is more hectic than a Carnival parade.  The vocals on the first couple of songs "You're No Good" and "Jet Blue Jet" don't come close to matching the energy of the synths and drums, and the smarmy way that they are sung in the bridge on "Wind Up" makes me cringe...hard.  It sounds like Diplo gets anxious quickly and rather than let the beat continue, he just adds in random sounds, like that stadium announcer voice, or the comical laughing, or the one line guest spots.  It really breaks up the flow of most of these new songs.

Also, the weird mishmashes of guests he features on each track don't fit well.  They just aren't used as purposefully as on Guns Don't Kill People...Lazers Do.  Also, I have no idea what dumpster Diplo found Shaggy in, but he certainly didn't do him any favours by getting him to sing on "Keep cool (Life is What)."  Shaggy was tacky in the 90's when he was still a recognizable performer and ten years later he sounds even more ridiculous.  Ok, I'll stop with the Shaggy hate.  It wasn't him, after all.

In summing this album up, even though I praised Major Lazer for being wacky in the past, the way Diplo is going about it now has several flaws.  It's just too much.  The beats are consistently overproduced, and far too aggressive without sticking to any sort of theme or letting an idea play out.  The guest spots are bizarre and crowded like a clown car, and it doesn't feel like Major Lazer is actually putting any thought into them.  Major Lazer is at its best when the guest spots are limited and the production is more relaxed like in "Get Free," "Jah no Partial," and "Watch Out for This (Bumaye)."  Other than those tracks (which are pretty good), very little about this album appeals to me. 

Discussion!

• I avoided rushing into a discussion about cultural appropriation, but my review hinted at it anyways.  Do you feel like Major Lazer does this negatively? is it a problem for you?
• Does Major Lazer's zaniness appeal to you or do you find yourself overloaded?

Thanks for reading! let me know what you think in the comments.

The Knife - Shaking the Habitual

Hello everyone! I am sorry that it has been a while, but I hung myself up on this review because I found this album very hard to approach.  This shouldn't be a surprise for anyone familiar with the Knife's work in general, or with this album in particular.  They have always had a shadowy and evil character to their electro pop, but as they produce more albums they seem to fade even further into the abyss.

The last studio album from the Knife was 2006's Silent Shout.  Since then, the group has produced Karin Dreijer Andersson's sullen and haunting solo project Fever Ray, and an obtuse Avant-garde opera about the life of Charles Darwin, titled Tomorrow in a Year.  I wouldn't recommend the latter of these two, unless you feel like being confused and horrified for 90 minutes straight.  However, it does help to be aware of it, in order to understand the more acoustic and experimental direction they followed from that point to their new album Shaking the Habitual.  They experiment with the same instruments on both albums, but this time they have actually mastered them, rather than just experimenting wildly.

The Knife could find a way to play a mean mayonnaise. 

This new work is still heavily experimental, but the structure is much more fluid, and feels more organic than Tomorrow in a Year.  However, Just because it flows well, don't think it's going to be a relaxing listen.  When the Knife says they are Shaking the Habitual, they clearly mean it.

Because of its name, I was expecting something more pointed and political.  Instead I received an amorphous, impenetrable blob of primordial ooze.  This fact alone would annoy me more if the cathartic experimentation wasn't the message in and of itself.  I think this decision goes hand in hand with the acoustic direction.  It almost feels like a regression through time, back to humanity's infancy.  There is less structure, and less electronics, and instead more unpredictability, and more emotional indulgence.

You want a nine minute, ambient, brainmelter with synths deep enough to hide the lochness monster in? and with only four lyrics about eating coffee and cake for lunch? Bam! "Cherry on Top," how about 20 minutes of tense, dissonant groaning created by recording noise in a boiler room with sputtering percussion that builds to nowhere? No? TOO BAD! "Old Dreams Waiting to be Realized!"

Shaking the Habitual is profound in its commitment to unbridled emotional expression.  The Knife doesn't shy away from a feeling or a thought until it has fully run its course, whether it takes 20 minutes or 37 seconds. Despite the huge variation in song lengths and styles, It is consistently dark, bold, and unapologetically ferocious.  These songs are so seriously far off the deep end; they could have been written by Cthulhu himself.  They do have their more accessible moments though.

Because Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn would be such a good chorus...

Like the single, "A Tooth for an Eye."  It has all the characteristics of a great Knife song: a steady build, intricate percussion, and disturbing vocal manipulations underwritten by a challenge of gender roles (which they expressed nicely in the music video).  This song and the other pagan dance ritual, "Without You My Life Would be Boring," are definitely the high points on the album for me.  They have a determined, satanic energy that makes me want to run until my lungs cave in, or scream till I start coughing up blood.

The second track "Full of Fire," is also a pounding, percussive, tour de force with some really devastating drum rolls, but I seriously hate the vocal delivery.  Despite its different manipulations, it remains displeasing to me in a way that isn't bold enough to make me more than mildly uncomfortable.  In fact, if I had to pick one thing I really didn't like about Shaking the Habitual, it would be the singing in general.  Usually, the Knife's strange vocals are blended seamlessly with their malevolent synthesizers, but their move to this more acoustic sound leaves the vocals sounding out of place in the beginnings of "Raging Lung," "Full of Fire," and "Ready to Lose."  They are eventually blended together, but the moments where they appear on their own are glaringly lacklustre.

At the end of this thing, and after reading the insane manifesto the Knife produced to describe it; I feel this album defies being rated on a traditional scale.  If someone were to give it a bad rating rating for being an inaccessible, shadowy behemoth without structure, catchy lyrics, or any semblance of comfort anywhere in it, then they would merely be confirming its existence as something disturbingly outside the ordinary.  It is long and disquieting and it may burn you out before it finishes, but this nightmare deserves your time and effort.  It will remind you that the strange, the beautiful, and the horrifying are not always separate when we encounter them within ourselves or hidden within the depths of the world.  By presenting them wholesale, and not parsing them down or separating them the Knife has created something truly disturbing and intensely thought provoking.  My god that was long.

Discussion!

• Honestly, the one thing I am curious about with this album is how other people experienced it.  Could you listen to the whole thing? Did it make you uncomfortable? Did it inspire you to think or did it just confuse you?

I really want to engage with people about this album, rather than just adding my review to the pile of positive reviews that already exist for it.  Please let me know in the comments.

Burial - Truant / Rough Sleeper

Have you ever had your dance music end up in the same key as some random background noises like a lawn mower or an electric heater?  If this happened at night, in a dumpy part of town, you may already know what it sounds like to listen to Burial.  His work has a very eerie and unexplained quality to it, even though most of it sounds quite beautiful.  It sounds like what you are hearing is being produced by some unknown instrument hiding inside a broken air conditioner rather than a synthesizer or any computer.  Also, All the elements in his music, especially the percussion, are quite stripped down, and the simplicity of it all makes it easy to notice when things warp and change fluidly throughout his songs.

After his 2007 album Untrue, burial has basically stopped producing albums, but is instead producing very forward thinking tracks that are as long as EP`s.  2012`s fantastic Kindred EP only packed three songs, but ran for a total of about 32 minutes.  In this longer format, the tracks have more freedom to meander and explore various pitch shifted vocals and ambient bass noises in a relaxed and very natural way.  Also, since you're not being forced to listen to ten or twelve of these epic tracks together in an album, each one has the opportunity to grip your full attention.

Truant / Rough Sleeper is another step in this exploratory direction, and it is a strong step indeed.  In the Kindred EP the drum samples stayed quite monotonous throughout the different tracks, but in "Truant" they are constantly evolving and changing.  You also hear this Djembe drift in and out of the mix as it being manipulated with all these different filters.  Some other interesting noises you hear in this track are jingling keys, coins dropping, matches burning, and wind chimes, and they all fit together nicely.  The song builds quite slowly, but when it really ramps up around the six minute mark, the effect of the lead synth against the backwards hi-hat, and all these other strange noises is quite beautiful and meditative.

One thing I didn't like very much was the bass sound that comes in around the nine minute mark.  It doesn't stay for very long, but this brief minor turn seems kind of out of place in this otherwise beautifully subtle nocturne.  Because of this substantial emotional change, I would almost rather that the last four minutes were a different song.  I also find that the many times the music stops completely in this song tend to break up the flow too much for a serious groove to ever develop.

"Rough Sleeper" was definitely my favorite of these two tracks.  I feel that the emotion was more consistent all the way through and it has a more fluid progression as well.  The saxophone sample in this song is rusty and haunting, and it fits right in with the many other vocal samples that phase in and out of the music like ghosts.  Later on when the marimba is introduced, the effect is just ethereal.  It fits into the static pops like a glove, and the whole song just sounds like the music is coming from the earth around you rather than your headphones or speakers.  In closing, if an amber lit back alleyway could sing to you, it would sound like Burial.

Flying Lotus - Until the Quiet Comes

Flying Lotus is an experimental, instrumental, plain old mental, hip-hop producer from California.  Over the past several years, he has broken many barriers for this genre of music, as well as making quite a name for himself by producing for other interesting artists such as Gonja Sufi and Thundercat.  This year, he has also broken into rapping under the pseudonym "Captain Murphy".

Each of his previous albums have been released to heavy critical acclaim, including his last work, "Cosmogramma," which was a fantastic and energetic union of jazz inspired hip hop and eccentric noise.  Its very evident in this new work that Flying Lotus has taken what he demonstrated on that album and presented in a more controlled form, and in many ways "Until the Quiet Comes" feels like a very organic progression from that album.  The pacing however, feels fairly relaxed and more similar to "Los Angeles" than Cosmogramma.  Also, even though many of the sounds on this album are sampled, they feel as crisp and real as if they were recorded in one take, jazz style.

One thing you will immediately notice about Until the Quiet Comes is the kick drums, which are astronomically huge.  On the tracks "Getting There," "Tiny Tortures," "Sultan's Request," and "Me Yesterday//Corded" they just grab you by your head and force it to bob, you simply have no choice.  The songs that stay away from strong hip-hop influences on this album are consistently spacey and atmospheric, so they provide some nice space in between the more energetic moments.

Like I said before, this feels like a very organic and smooth progression from his last album, but one of my complaints about Flying Lotus actually follows from this same point.  In many ways Until the Quiet Comes does not feel different enough.  If he had released all these tracks with the same cover art as Cosmogramma, I feel like I would not have been able to tell the difference between the two works

I also feel that most of the individual songs get somewhat lost to me.  Other than the singles, many of his songs pass right by me without notice.   I think this is an unavoidable consequence of having a large number of short tracks on each album that all flow seamlessly into one another.  It builds a strong atmosphere, but I had to go back and actually search track by track to find the ones I liked.  I generally liked this album, but it was not distinct in my mind at all.  Without it leaving any sort of lasting impression on me, I find it hard to say that it was one of his better works, but if you are fan of Flying Lotus, you will definitely enjoy it.

Kids and Explosions - Shit Computer

In honour of the upcoming Rifflandia Festival in our very own victoria, I have decided to try to review a couple albums from the incredible lineup of talented artists they have this year.  The first of these artists that I decided to check out is Kids and Explosions' 2010 album "Shit Computer."  You can check out his bio for Rifflandia here.

At a first glance, you might compare K&E to the pop sampling maniac Girl Talk, but K&E's more focused and careful delivery exceeds Girl Talk's frantic, fuck and chuck style of quickly adding elements and then changing them 8-10 seconds later before they have a chance to fully develop.  K&E's attention to pacing creates more complete songs and an altogether more cohesive album.

Even though K&E utilizes samples for all of his music, he is not content to let them play as normal.  In fact, a lot of the fun of listening to this music is remembering what the original lyrics or melodies are, and comparing them to how they have been chopped up and forced into these new formations.  For example, the opener, "Everything," features some hilariously mixed up Eminem and Notorious lyrics, set against a very backwards rendition of what I think might be "Sweet Child of Mine."  This technique reaches ridiculous proportions on the aptly titled "Swear Words," a song that is childish, but still fun.  I definitely laughed every time I heard Biggie yell "tits!"

I also find that, when you take away the meaning of these rap lyrics, it forces you to pay attention to the timbre of each rappers voice.  This is something that does not always get as much attention in rap music and you may once again find yourself loving how angry Eminem sounds, or appreciating Lil. Wayne's nick name "Weezy."

This album is not without its flaws, however.  When K&E's slice and dice skills fail, they fail hard.  At their best they are fun and intellectually compelling, but at their worst they are jittery and nearly intolerable, like on the track "Winning is Easy."  To put it in perspective though, this was a remarkably fun and unique mash up album, and since it is a first effort from K&E, I look forward to seeing K&E's development in the future.  I am also excited to see him play Thursday September 11 at Market Square.

Zammuto - Zammuto

Zammuto - Zammuto

Experimental music consistently has a habit of being serious in nature.  It plays itself off as something you should be scratching your chin at while staring blankly into your stereo.  This is not the case with Zammuto's new self titled album.  Nearly all of the vocals in this work are heavily edited, and the song structure frequently deviates from the norm, but the music consistently comes off as light hearted and fun.

This album is the new project of former Books guitarist Nick Zammuto.  It is a four piece outfit with Nick Zammuto on the guitars and vocals, Gene Back on guitar, organ, and keys, Sean Dixon on the drums, and Mikey Zammuto on the Bass.  While it retains several elements that make the Books a good band, it is more accessible and energetic.  For starters, Zammuto does not use nearly as many vocal samples as the Books, which I feel makes the lyrical content more engaging and emotive.  You can read the full story of the Books' break up and Zammuto's formation here.

One thing that is interesting throughout this album is the different ways that they edit the vocals.  The opener "Yay" uses some strange intermittent filtering which makes the lyrics unintelligible, but builds the energy of the song to the point of ecstasy.  The next song "Groan Man, Don't Cry" makes extensive use of a vochorder to building interesting harmonies against Nick Zammuto's fantastic guitar riffs. "FU-C3P0" sounds like the lyrics are typed into a speak and spell.  The incredibly strange, pseudo rap or slam poetry song "Zebra Butt" has the female vocalist slowly speak like the Windows text to speech program (that we all typed swearwords into, in our youth) over a bubbling electronic bass line that slowly builds until it explodes into a cacophony of electric angst.

The second half of the album has a more relaxed feeling but still maintains interest through the use of the  electronic vocals, drum samples, and sequenced bass.  The song "Harlequin" uses some interesting keys that sound like pvc piping, before falling into a haunting night time ballad.  It utilizes a more toned down version of "Yay's" vocal editing that sounds like the vocals are rippling across the surface of a pond.  Finally, the closer "Full Fading" makes it seem like you are drifting away on the smoothness of Nick Zammuto's electronic voice, like a computer slowly running out of batteries.

All together, I immensely enjoyed this album.  The use of the vocal editing made this work consistently fun and engaging all the way through, even on the slower songs at the end.  It can be hard to distinguish which sounds have been sampled and which have been authentically recorded, but I don't really think it matters because the end product sounds fantastic.  The use of vocals in this album can seem alienating during the very energetic songs such as "Yay" and "Zebra Butt", but the closing tracks are so beautiful and relaxing, that it should round off the experience quite peacefully.