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Gold Chains, "Young Miss America"
PIAS America
It's not surprising that the first full-length Gold Chains release isreceiving mixed reviews. Everybody's only used to hearing a GC productin shorter increments—and the reason why that works so perfectly isthat it's complimentary to the unique GC style. Topher LaFata, whobasically -is- Gold Chains is one mad talented motherfucker. His rap isdensely packed, rarely ever pausing to let the music to exist on itsown, while the music is so intricate and involved, changing stylesoften from bar to bar. By the second track he's gone from four on thefloor techno to swinging post-industrial, and nerdy glitch pop all in amatter of minutes. The swapping of styles continues for the rest of therelease, from parodies of big buck rap to jazzy interludes. Couple thiswith rare occurances of lyrical repetition or a "chorus," and tuning into the music demands complete and undivided attention. Only untilrepeated listens are instruments like live drums, piano, and guitarseven audible, since the subject matter of the rap is such an involvedfantasy world that it's hard to pay attention to everything else that'sgoing on. Thankfully lyrics were included this time around. Reading thelyrics without the music is also a fun exercise as they make greatjournal entries or stream of consciousness writing on their own. Topherloves to play with language, with a number of themes which seem toresurface. Themes about San Francisco, society, sex, drugs, money, and"warpping that Cali cooch in Prada" are amusing but crashing 11 songsof that in a row makes this album work best as a record to be paused inthe middle while the listener's got to get up off their ass and go flipit. In a bizarre way, it all makes sense that Topher is an oldindustrial fan, a former punk bass player, and allegedly an intensecomputer programmer. Gold Chains is almost like the prog-rock of modernelectronic laptop rap, as the music is so dense, academicallyflamboyant, technically nerdy, but superbly addictive after its hookshave sunk in. Some people claim that with an expensive video and theright promotion, this guy could be huge, but I think at this point hismusic is far more involved than the general public can handle. I lookforward to the "techno" album LaFata claims to be working on as even anold GC tune like "Burn Babylon" has the fabulous powers of sexy killerhooks. The question remains: if world domination is in the dreams ofGC, is he willing to dumb his music down for the masses? I sure as hellhope not.
It's not surprising that the first full-length Gold Chains release isreceiving mixed reviews. Everybody's only used to hearing a GC productin shorter increments—and the reason why that works so perfectly isthat it's complimentary to the unique GC style. Topher LaFata, whobasically -is- Gold Chains is one mad talented motherfucker. His rap isdensely packed, rarely ever pausing to let the music to exist on itsown, while the music is so intricate and involved, changing stylesoften from bar to bar. By the second track he's gone from four on thefloor techno to swinging post-industrial, and nerdy glitch pop all in amatter of minutes. The swapping of styles continues for the rest of therelease, from parodies of big buck rap to jazzy interludes. Couple thiswith rare occurances of lyrical repetition or a "chorus," and tuning into the music demands complete and undivided attention. Only untilrepeated listens are instruments like live drums, piano, and guitarseven audible, since the subject matter of the rap is such an involvedfantasy world that it's hard to pay attention to everything else that'sgoing on. Thankfully lyrics were included this time around. Reading thelyrics without the music is also a fun exercise as they make greatjournal entries or stream of consciousness writing on their own. Topherloves to play with language, with a number of themes which seem toresurface. Themes about San Francisco, society, sex, drugs, money, and"warpping that Cali cooch in Prada" are amusing but crashing 11 songsof that in a row makes this album work best as a record to be paused inthe middle while the listener's got to get up off their ass and go flipit. In a bizarre way, it all makes sense that Topher is an oldindustrial fan, a former punk bass player, and allegedly an intensecomputer programmer. Gold Chains is almost like the prog-rock of modernelectronic laptop rap, as the music is so dense, academicallyflamboyant, technically nerdy, but superbly addictive after its hookshave sunk in. Some people claim that with an expensive video and theright promotion, this guy could be huge, but I think at this point hismusic is far more involved than the general public can handle. I lookforward to the "techno" album LaFata claims to be working on as even anold GC tune like "Burn Babylon" has the fabulous powers of sexy killerhooks. The question remains: if world domination is in the dreams ofGC, is he willing to dumb his music down for the masses? I sure as hellhope not.
