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- Albums and Singles
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- Alex Krieger
- Albums and Singles
It's a strange listen. All the beats are mutated beyond descriptioninto clicks, snicks, slurps, and a very familiar boing that I suspectwas plucked from the old Nintendo game Metroid (another featuredelement in the liner notes). Beautiful melodies weave in out of nowhereand leave just as suddenly -- just as Marumari gets a groove going, itfades out, comes back, reverses itself, speeds up, disappears entirelyinto the layers of background noise. Towards the end of the album therough-and-tumble, loping beats fade into hums and drones, strangemumbles and burbles. I don't mean for it to sound like I'm describingMouse on Mars, though the same feeling is there at times; there aremore straight-ahead rock-on moments and less goofy-fun analogtwiddling, on the whole.
Sometimes electronic music is so unintelligible or inhuman that evenspeculating about its motivation is pointless. Despite this album'stendency to wander in strange directions and sometimes get flat-outweird, I never lost the feeling that someone was behind it all, happily(if inexpertly) pushing buttons and twirling knobs. Confusing, maybe,but Marumari brings a brand of playfulness to his music I've yet tocome across anywhere else. He's not cheeky or smart-assed like ?-Ziq orAphex Twin, or gleefully juvenile and iconoclastic like Kid606 or V/VM.Instead, it's the wide-eyed, naive, incomprehensible joy of (I suppose)alien cyborg puppies.
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- Bobby Szozda
- Albums and Singles
That said, for anyone who has yet to pick the album up yet...uh...let'sjust say that maybe you should put it on the back burner for now.Hearing the first chords of the opening song "What Holds The WorldTogether" done by Ida was in itself one of the best music experiencesthis year, priming me for an album in which almost every single songsounds the same. For the most part the songs are played and arranged"as is"--no interesting and/or notable departures that usually make thetedious genre of tribute albums bearable. These are hard words towrite; I can barely play music myself and applaud the kind of effortthat goes into a project such as this, but some of these musiciansalmost make AMC out to be a parody that so many tried to peg the bandas, a sad, mopey bedsit band incapable of rocking or doing anythingrequiring more than emotion.
But in his defense, Paul Austin cops to so much in the liner notes: "Arecord aiming to represent the whole sonic scope of AMC would includenot only songs of love and hope so heart-wrenching your knees mightbuckle; it would include also a dose of flailing dissonance, a dollopof honky tonk pun tossing, and the occasional flat out rocker. This,unapologetically, is not that record." Um, then what is it? A showcaseof 12 very talented musicians basically covering AMC and not doing itwith very much variety? I'm sure we're all tired of the music mediapigeonholing AMC and Eitzel as nothing but dour, sad miserablists.Maybe I'm going out on a limb, but it's the hope and beauty that all oftheir music gives out that make me listen to their music, not what somepeople believe to be their token "oh isn't the world just unrepentantlyshitty" attitude.
But, I suppose, a sub-par AMC tribute album is better than no AMCtribute album at all...and much of this music is quite pretty andsoothing to listen to on a cold Northern Ohio night when there's awinter weather advisory, no less. But taking into account that I am alazy git who applauds the fact that it was put together at all, itcould have been better.
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- Albums and Singles
Matmos, Lesser, Kit Clayton, Slicker, Designer, Cex, Hrvatski, Kid 606 and 21 other artists have all exported tracks for this 2xCD release from the German label Klangkrieg. The collection is a fine offering of tunes and will no doubt serve as both a great introduction to some of these noteworthy acts and for current fans an opportunity to collect more songs from the groups.Klang Krieg
While I love the wide array of styles here, two things stick out in my mind: both revolving around my concerns over truth in packaging. The disc seems rather 606-scenester or San Fran-centric, it almost mimics a collection that would have been all too predictable for the Tigerbeat 6 label. In addition to this, the term breakbeat seems to be used rather loosely as well. Only on about three tracks do I hear a beat that I can particulary identify as a breakbeat. Regardless, for the price it packs a good bang and can proudly be displayed in your collection next to this year's other German compilation of American stuff, Chicago 2018.
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samples:
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- Administrator
- Albums and Singles
samples:
- Muslimgauze - untitled
- Sound Secretion - Perpetual Next
- Onry & Oldominion - Jezebelian
- Phase Selector Sound - Sky Cup
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