2pworth

Category: Reviews

  • BILLY MACKENZIE: TRANSMISSION IMPOSSIBLE

    When Billy Mackenzie committed suicide in 1997 at the age of 39, he left behind a wealth of unfinished material. Some of this material was more in the style of his electronic associations, and some were stark, brooding piano based compositions. This posthumous release falls firmly in the latter category. Transmission Impossible is a dark and haunting collection taken from Mackenzie’s personal archive recorded sometime between the demise of the Associates in 1990 and the singer’s own death. This 13-song set contains a mixed batch that showcases the transcendent quality of Mackenzie’s vocal capabilities.

    BILLY MACKENZIE

    TRANSMISSION IMPOSSIBLE

    One Little Indian

    2006-04-04

    That there should be covers of songs by two artists who Mackenzie never made any secret of his affection for should shock no one. Moreover, the loving manner in which they are treated gives them such a charm that brings out the best in the performances. These two songs, “Wild is the Wind” (a Johnny Mathis tune made famous by David Bowie) and the Sparks classic “Never Turn Your Back on Mother Earth” are just perfect. Really, really lovely to listen to. Indeed, I would go as far as saying that only Mackenzie could have pulled off such a “in the style of Bowie” cover without it sounding like pastiche.

    Transmission Impossible plays mostly like a version of Satie’s “Gymnopédies” with suitably cryptic lyrics. Nonetheless, like all works of art created by troubled genius, it has soaring highs and broken glass in gutter lows. Visitors to the Billy Mackenzie museum are led to ponder the sublime “Satellite Life” and “And This She Knows”, then as unwilling, but transfixed listeners, we are dragged to gape at the quite ludicrous “Liberty Lounge” and “At the Edge of the World” that frankly take the Berlin period Bowie template a little too far.

    You have to ask yourself, if Billy Mackenzie were alive would he actually release this record? It is the record of a man freed of the record-making system and given the liberty to delve into unexplored emotions through the medium of song and tape. However, it is also the record of a man without a producer. Lest we forget that producers do not only prettify the sounds that artists produce, they also shape the songs and performances into the finished product. What we have here is something between demo and the deep blue CD.

    That aside, it shows such promise to make you speculate what a wonderful album it might have been if it had been given that care and attention of say, a Scott Walker album. One can only hint at the greatness that might have been. But alas, this is not such an album. This album is a selection of not quite finished examples of the songcraft of a man who’s superlative voice defies proper description.

    Transmission Impossible succeeds best as a platform for Mackenzie’s voice that was a powerful and sweet thing to behold. Whether in spooky falsetto or Bowie-esque mode, he rarely disappointed with a vocal performance. It will forever be a shame that the man’s brief brush with electro pop stardom in the 1980s never really took hold with the Associates. Sadder still, with this release we are left with hints that the man was capable of so much more, and left in his wake so much unfulfilled promise.

    This review was originally posted on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/billy-mackenzie-transmission-impossible-2495679282.html
  • AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND: REMIXED!

    AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND: REMIXED!

    For the uninitiated (colour me that shade of ignorant), klezmer music is a form of music that developed in Southeastern Europe and is also associated with Jewish celebrations. There are very particular instruments linked to this musical genre, such as the violin, clarinet, and trombone. One apparently does not usually tie this music in with synthetic dance beats, rub-a-dub reggae, and rap. That is, until now. The concept behind this release is to take a number of klezmer tunes as written and performed by the Amsterdam Klezmer Band and experiment with them until they have a very contemporary feel. Such luminaries as Shantel and DJ Yury Gurzhy (nope, me neither) have taken the reins and attempted bring this style into the 21st century. The result is Remixed!

    AMSTERDAM KLEZMER BAND

    REMIXED!

    Essay

    2006-04-18

    The album feels a little disjointed. It is neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring. If you are looking for a collection of klezmer tunes, then I suggest you keep on hunting because there is nothing to fulfill your need here. The performances by the Amsterdam Klezmer Band (that are almost obscured by the remixers) give you some idea about how entertaining they almost certainly are as a live act. However, the original tunes are reworked and jazzed up for the MTV generation, often leaving little impression of the original. Yeah, well, that is what happens on remix albums, right?

    Where it works best is ironically where the premise fails. The numbers that retain their intrinsic traditional feel are the ones that stand head and shoulders above the rest. For example, all that appears to have been added to “Terk” are some sequenced beats, and as a result we have quite a funky tune that still sounds connected to its roots, albeit somewhat beefed up. The same goes for “Constantinopel Babes” [sic]; it has a phat beat attached, but still it sounds like it could be coming out of the window of the window of a Jewish wedding.

    “Ludacris” is a fine example of this teetering on the edge of being neither one thing nor the other. It begins as a 1970s cop show theme, blends into a Brechtian nightmare of a woodwind solo, and then invites us back to the streets of San Francisco once more. It is simultaneously unsettling and preposterous but strangely compelling. As a matter of fact, the previous sentence sums up the album quite nicely. As it is difficult to find a box to put it in, you are left feeling that you are missing something. Or perhaps that is indeed the problem; because this album cannot be easily categorised, I am left with the feeling that something is not quite right with it but in fact the problem lies within my own bias.

    Actually, the fact remains that after repeated listens it really is the kind of record that you would play if you were hosting a house party or had a long drive and you wanted something to keep you awake. Nevertheless, you must stick with it for a while, as it can be a little bit of a confusing listen. Moreover, this recording can make one yearn for the un-re-mixed versions so that one can enjoy this band the way nature intended.

    This album was originally reviewed on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/amsterdam-klezmer-band-remixed-2495679462.html
  • DUB SYNDICATE: THE RASTA FAR I

    DUB SYNDICATE: THE RASTA FAR I

    Unlike its cousins reggae and ska, which exude summertime and sunglasses, dub music is deeply redolent of dark smoky nightclubs, sometimes-dodgy backstreet purveyors of comic books, and blacklit, ganja-soaked “coffee shops.” It is typified by colossal amounts of echo and bass at the kind of frequency that makes your teeth hurt. Of the many exponents of this genre, the Dub Syndicate is the closest thing there can be to a dub supergroup. This is because practically anyone who is anyone in the world of dub has worked with this loose association of reggae musicians. Also, in the 20 or so years since their inception they have produced music of a consistent quality and are still going strong. Dub Syndicate is the brainchild of former Roots Radics drummer Lincoln Valentine “Style” Scott and On-U-Sound supremo Adrian Sherwood.

    DUB SYNDICATE

    THE RASTA FAR I

    Collision

    2006-05-30

    The retrospective collection The Rasta Far I features the vocal talents of such reggae luminaries as Big Youth, Junior Reid, and Gregory Isaacs (incidentally, it was Isaacs who first brought Scott to the UK and introduced him to Adrian Sherwood). Moreover, the chin-scratching music trainspotters amongst us are also treated to the bass-work of Bill Laswell (Material, Golden Palominos, and the producer and co-writer of the seminal “Rockit” by Herbie Hancock) and the electric sitar-playing (that’s right, sitar on a dub record!) of erstwhile Golden Palomino Nicky Skopelitis. The tracks are all recorded at the Tuff Gong studios in Jamaica, set up by one Robert Marley (and his Wailers), and mixed by Arian Sherwood and Scientist. The whole CD just reeks of quality and authenticity.

    However, faithfulness to style does not make originality a victim. Style Scott prides himself on the forward-looking attitude of his band, and there is no resting on the laurels of dub here. Dub Syndicate is again looking to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in this musical approach. In this collection you can hear the use of all of the regular instruments associated with reggae, but also a few unfamiliar faces, such as the aforementioned sitar and the violin. Okay, in actuality this is not ground-breaking stuff, but it is a slightly different take on the genre, which is refreshing to hear.

    This particular Dub Syndicate album is a retrospective of the last 10 years of the band on Style Scott’s own Lion & Roots label. It gives an overview, but also adds something new, as it’s not merely a “best of.” The Rasta Far I is a two-CD set: CD 1 is 17 of the best tracks from the decade, hand-picked and reworked into a megamix by Rob Smith, one half of those kings of the UK jungle scene, Smith & Mighty. The resulting sounds are non-stop versions of versions. It feels a little like you are actually at a dub party somewhere, with Mr Smith spinning the “wheels of steel,” adding his own style to the already rub-a-dub sound of the DS.

    CD two features 16 rare and unreleased versions of Dub Syndicate material. Some of these bits and pieces appear in different version on CD 1, but they are different enough to warrant inclusion. There are many tracks that are worth a mention, but the most striking are CD 1’s “Jamaican Proverb” and “Hard & Tuff”, both featuring the vocal talents of dub poet Yasus Afari. His sing-song/softly spoken style is charming and strangely beautiful, worth the admission price alone.

    If you’ve never heard anything by the Dub Syndicate, this will serve as a good primer. If you are a fan already, waiting patiently until summer 2007 for the new album, then this might sate your appetite until then.

    This review was originally posted on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/dub-syndicate-the-rasta-far-i-2495677676.html

  • BLACK 47: BITTERSWEET SIXTEEN

    BLACK 47: BITTERSWEET SIXTEEN

    Apparently Black 47 are recognised as the premier Irish-American rock group who “paved the way for the current Irish-American explosion” and their new album is a retrospective of their 16 years of recording. This is what you glean from their website and the accompanying press release. From that information alone you might expect the same kind of irreverence and grit that you got from the Pogues in their Shane MacGowan heyday. Black 47 have carved out a little niche for themselves as Irish-American protest singers and I guess in the USA and the republic of Ireland they are well-known, but from Bittersweet Sixteen it is a little difficult to determine exactly why.

    BLACK 47

    BITTERSWEET SIXTEEN

    Gadfly

    2006-03-21

    Larry Kirwan is the politically uncompromising Irishman that leads Black 47. The music is full of swagger and a chin-forward stance that should stir the shackles at the back of your neck. There is a certain aggression and force that lives in the songs somewhere. This force is aching to get out. However, it gets lost in the production and/or the execution. Consequently, what you get are protest songs that are somewhat limp and don’t really, well… protest. They kind of whine, but more on that later.

    Politically, Black 47’s hearts are firmly in the right place. Of this there is no doubt, but the material doesn’t seem to cut the mustard. The well meaning content of Mr Kirwan’s lyrics does not cancel that musically they are somewhere between the Alarm and “Big Music”-period Waterboys. Now, I’m willing to ride the retro peace train with the rest of you, but this is not really retro. Okay, it is a “best of” album, but even the more recently recorded tracks sound old. That is the crux of the problem here. The quality of most of the recordings is awful, really poor live demos or abandoned studio tapes fill the gaps that the old record companies have made by deleting their back catalogue.

    Not just that… this 16-track retrospective (one song for every long year of this band’s existence) shows how it is in fact possible for a group to not progress over nearly two decades. Probable exceptions to this sweeping statement are the cod-reggae disaster of “Voodoo City” and the really dreadful Glenn Miller with uilleann pipes fiasco that is “Staten Island Baby”.

    From these examples we come to “Downtown Baghdad Blues” (hmm… I wonder what that one could be about), which is a revolutionary anti-war song. One almost wants to paraphrase Bono from his famous introduction to “Sunday Bloody Sunday”, but “one” won’t. Their attempts at revolutionary rock fall flat due to lack of musical originality, but mainly as a result of Kirwan’s voice. Rather than making powerful statements it just feels like he is whining in an altogether atonal way. Sure, this was done by the Clash and the Sex Pistols but really Black 47 are no punk band.

    However, if Black 47 formed part of your musical upbringing you may have a soft spot for them in your heart. You may put them up there with the likes of the Pogues as one of the great punky Celtic rock bands. Perhaps if I had been exposed to the band in their prime then I would be able to listen to a lot of these substandard recordings with a wry smile on my face. On the strength of these recordings I am not incited to rummage through second hand stores to listen to the glory of their deleted back catalogue.

    This album was originally reviewed on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/black-47-bittersweet-sixteen-2495679022.html
  • ANI DIFRANCO: CARNEGIE HALL – 4.6.02

    ANI DIFRANCO: CARNEGIE HALL – 4.6.02

    I’ve had a relationship with Ani DiFranco since around 1993.

    ANI DIFRANCO

    CARNEGIE HALL – 4.6.02

    Righteous Babe

    2006-04-04

    This is not a conventional relationship, shall we say. It is somewhat of a long-distance one, but no less fulfilling for that. She and I don’t always agree, and she rarely listens to what I have to say. It is like she just doesn’t hear me sometimes, and we don’t see each other as much as we used to.

    Before I get written off as some crazy stalker dude, I’ll cut to the chase – the reason I feel the way I do is that Ani is one of the few artists I’ve discovered who hasn’t later become fat and complacent on a major label (are you listening, Mr. Stipe?). Instead, she has built an empire of her own, on her terms. One of those terms is the way her music expresses an unflinching stare at American society, with all of its flaws and glory. On her records this lyrical gaze is sometimes smothered by her musical experimentation, as with her recent foray into funk. However, where she always succeeds is her live performance. The thing about Ani’s (I hope she doesn’t mind that I call her Ani) live performance is that you are left feeling that you have been really intimate with this lady. Hence the fact that I feel a connection.

    Her previous general-release live albums, Living In Clip andSo Much Shouting So Much Laughter, shows this, but not as well as this new live album Carnegie Hall – 4.6.02 does. Here Ani is stripped from her touring band, playing alone to a Carnegie Hall audience seven short months after the events of September 11, 2001. She appears totally comfortable playing to a large audience and talking to them as if they were just friends in a bar. Equipped with only an acoustic guitar, a voice, and her arsenal of words, DiFranco wholly disarms the audience, not only with the performance of her songs but also with her between-song chitchat. In both aspects she appears honest; with every new line and every new chord you feel like you just get to know her better. Her (by now) trademark percussive style of guitar-playing is on full display, with nothing to obscure it. Her voice skips and soars at the same time, matching and counter-pointing the staccato of her finger-picking. Boy, can she play the guitar.

    The selection of songs for this official bootleg CD (Note to Righteous Babe: “official” and “bootleg” are two words that rarely belong to each other) covers her career nicely. She raids the archives for older tunes “Names and Dates and Times”, and treats the audience to songs that are not quite finished, like “Serpentine” and the poem “Self Evident”. When I saw the latter two songs performed live with a full band, later on in 2002, they were more musical but by no means as emotionally executed.

    There is a certain rawness and integrity to this recording. It is a snapshot of a performer coming to terms with a world that has been changed forever. With each song her show becomes more stripped, more frantic, and in places more out of key. Refusing to make any glib remarks about the demise of the people that worked in the Twin Towers and the landmark buildings themselves, Ani covers the thorny subject in her recital of “Self Evident”. In the liner notes she covers the self-doubt that she felt before performing the poem, and you can hear the hesitation in her voice. No review will ever do this recital justice.

    For me this recording is most reminiscent of her early recordings (if you haven’t yet, check out Puddle Dive), which captured my interest so long ago. Its raw, stripped-down quality gets rid of some of her more recent funk pretensions and delivers her brand of folk/punk as she originally presented it. Ani DiFranco is always political. Whether it’s the politics of personal relationships or those of the public political sphere, she has a way of finding the raw nerve and poking it with a toothpick. Moreover, she does this with a cute smile and a giggle. She is the most dangerous sort of protest singer: an angelic figure with a large axe hidden behind her back, ready to hack away at conspiracy and political complacency. While some of her more recent recordings have been musically experimental, with Carnegie Hall – 4.6.02 she shows that despite her success she still has her feet firmly on the ground and is every bit the travelling little folk singer with a punk twist.

    The review was originally posted on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/ani-difranco-carnegie-hall-4602-2495679025.html
  • THIEVERY CORPORATION: VERSIONS

    THIEVERY CORPORATION: VERSIONS

    Bass is a prominent character in the theatre of the Thievery Corporation. Their “original” albums are inundated with it. The same is clearly true when they helm a remix effort. They take a tune, add lounge or Latin rhythms to it, then put the listener’s head right into the bass bin and stand well back. The result as exemplified here in Versions is a delightful Sunday morning workout of the capabilities of your Hi-Fi equipment. It matters not that they have chosen to rework some obscure tunes that probably would not otherwise grace your record collection. Indeed, it would be almost cheap of them to even consider using mainstream tunes. You want them to pan for lost nuggets of musical gold and then beat them into a beautiful shape so that you and your friends can rub your chins thoughtfully as you listen while slumped in your IKEA furniture. In this respect, Thievery Corporation do not disappoint.

    THIEVERY CORPORATION

    VERSIONS

    Eighteenth Street Lounge Music

    2006-05-16

    Thievery Corporation have taken their lead from the Jamaican dub style by accentuating the bass and the drums; they remove the vocals for the most part and let the spaces in between carry the rhythm and swaddle the result in modern digital reverb and other effects. Due to this, on the proper equipment this recording has the capacity to really piss off your neighbours or parents, so play with extreme caution. I suggest a rainy weekend, using a decent sub-woofer set to the kind of frequencies that only your lungs can hear.

    Among the luxurious tunes that Thievery Corporation have cast their leisurely gaze over is a version of Public Image Ltd.’s “This is Not a Love Song”, but John Lydon’s vocal is nowhere to be heard. It would be too obvious and not tasteful enough to remix that song. Instead we are treated to a cover version by Nouvelle Vague, a French project dedicated to updating 1980s hits using female vocalists that have never heard the originals. Nice. They also direct their beady eyes at the Doors’ “Strange Days” and come up with something quite charming, if a little unsettling. Jim Morrison to a dance beat… not sure about it (think of how you felt when you first heard the David Holmes remix of Elvis Presley’s “A Little Less Conversation”; disconcerting but cool). All that receives the TC dub treatment comes out the other end much the better for it. There is no other way that I would like to listen to Norah Jones or Sarah McLachlan.

    This is the sort of music that Steven Soderbergh would use in his Ocean’s series of film if he did not already use David Holmes. It supersedes hip and has a recognizable cinematic quality. If you are listening to this album on whatever music device you favour while travelling in a city, you cannot help but feel that you are in a movie and what you hear is the soundtrack. This works particularly well at night if you are on a full metro or other public train service.

    Versions is a damn fine remix record. Also, because Thievery Corporation have a sound and trendy following all of their own; it also works as well as an original release. Although saying that, the original tunes are not as stand-out as the remixes. If you find yourself in the market for a record to put on in the background while you chat to your mates, or if you have a particularly awesome sound system that you would like to put through its paces, then you could do a lot worse than buying this album.

    originally posted on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/thievery-corporation-versions-2495676358.html

  • ELEFANT: THE BLACK MAGIC SHOW

    ELEFANT: THE BLACK MAGIC SHOW

    I’m sure that you are familiar with the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes, where the Emperor swanned around butt-naked because he had been conned by an unscrupulous tailor. In this tale, the courtiers were terrified to inform said Emperor that his danglies were on show for fear of reprisal. It took the new kid on the block to point out that these magical new clothes that the boss man was sporting were not so innovative. It took an innocent child to burst the bubble of deception. Well, I am not exactly a child, but I hereby perform that function: As good as it is, Elefant’s new album Black Magic Show is nothing that hasn’t been heard before.

    ELEFANT

    THE BLACK MAGIC SHOW

    Hollywood

    2006-04-18

    Let’s just straighten something out before we go any further. I like this record. I wasn’t sure at first. I had a few misgivings, but it has an infectious quality that sort of grows on you. However, I sort of like it despite myself; it’s like a shallow, dirty little secret that I harbour. It is like that ABBA album that I own, or the Bay City Rollers record that I have in storage. I like it notwithstanding the fact that it has no substance, that it is bubble gum for the 21st century.

    As they are based in New York City, it would be too easy to compare them to other NYC darlings the Strokes. Indeed, this happened when Elefant’s debut, Sunlight Makes Me Paranoid, hit the streets in 2003. They are not alike. Where the Strokes emulate Lust For Life-era Iggy Pop, Elefant flirt with those that tried (and failed) to copy David Bowie in the ’80s. I also found it really difficult to listen to this CD without it conjuring impressions of Suede, and as evidence for this I offer you “My Apology”, which could easily be mistaken for a Butler/Anderson composition.

    Black Magic Show has really lush production values. Most tracks are full to the bursting point of really well crafted and rounded off recorded digital sounds. This has the effect of making it all border on sounding like a New Romantic record. This happens particularly on the more jolly tunes like “Don’t Wait” and “Sirens”. However, for the most part it just sounds like Suede. Sure, the album is full of really catchy melodies, infectious grooves, and Epicurean sonic landscapes. The music is all very O.C.-ready. That is to say that none of it would be out of place on the soundtrack of whatever the hit TV show is this week. Case in point is “Uh Oh Hello”, which sounds like it was lifted directly from a Vodafone commercial. I wouldn’t get very good odds on it being used for some cell phone company at some point in 2006.

    The best songs on this album are the ones where they just don’t bother to be original. The aforementioned “My Apology” and “Uh Oh Hello” sound like Suede (are you getting the subliminal message yet?) and the Lightning Seeds respectively, and “Lolita” borrows heavily from Elastica. That said, nothing contained herein could be accused of being deep and thoughtful. Diego Garcia’s lyrics promise to share with you experiences from other cultures gleaned from his erudite mind, but actually deliver fist-in-the-air stompers more akin to Gary Glitter than Nabokov.

    So, no matter what you hear from the PR spinners, this album is not groundbreaking. It is not a work of magic. In fact, any attempt to portray it as such would indeed require a conjuring trick of its own. It is quite good pop music. I would even go so far as to say it was good. It is probably worth your hard-earned cash, but you shouldn’t get swept along on the coat tails of the oncoming hype.

    originally on pop matters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/elefant_the_black_magic_show-2495676709.html
  • VERNON REID AND MASQUE: OTHER TRUE SELF

    VERNON REID AND MASQUE: OTHER TRUE SELF

    Despite the fact that the band seemed to go their separate ways in 1995, it is difficult to discuss Vernon Reid without mentioning Living Colour, so I will get it out of the way right at the beginning, but I can’t promise that I won’t mention it again. When Living Colour hit the scene back in the 1980s, they promised to be a fusion of metal and funk and soul. This was a promise that they almost made good on, and they went on to spearhead the funk-o-metal carpet ride that rock music became between 1988 and 1990. They took up a lot of column inches and they brought with them into the limelight such acts as Fishbone, Jane’s Addiction, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Faith No More, and (ahem) the Dan Reed Network. The stand out members of the band were Corey Glover, for his powerful and sometimes soulful vocals, and Vernon Reid, for his amazing technical ability to make the guitar sound like it was a wild beast that needed taming. Since 1995, Reid has done turns for the likes of Tracey Chapman, Jack Bruce, and DJ Spooky, as well as recording another Living Colour album in 2003.

    VERNON REID AND MASQUE

    OTHER TRUE SELF

    Favored Nations

    2006-04-18

    “Masque is about identity,” claims Reid. He maintains that it is this question that has informed everything that he has done from the beginning of his solo career. On listening to Other True Self, it is difficult to see how Mr. Reid has spent his time exploring this question. As an analytical tool, the compact disc format is not exactly foolproof, but it does offer a snapshot of time that one can look at in more depth. Regrettably, he offers no insight into his true self, unless this particular self is disjointed and confused and asks more questions than it answers. As a closet social psychologist, I am willing to believe that is the case. Even more problematic, this particular exploration of the psyche can be a trying experience at times.

    The album opens with “Game Is Rigged”, the kind of instrumental that tended to uncomfortably sit on a Living Colour album. It sets the tone for the rest of the album in terms of temperament. The song is poorly behaved; it refuses to stay in one place, like a hyperactive child desperate to grab your attention. One second it is harmonics and hammer-ons, the next it is syncopated beats with a lounge style organ and lots — and I mean LOTS — of guitar. Next up, we get a cover of Radiohead’s “National Anthem”, from their Kid A album. Musically, it is note perfect, but robbed of Thom Yorke’s paranoid ramblings the song loses all of its tension and claustrophobia. The pinnacle of this album has to be the instrumental (did I mention that this album was an instrumental?) version of Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence”. This is another note-perfect tune that almost lifts off, but then just falls into yet another safe guitar noodle. Reid explores his identity all over Martin Gore’s masterwork, replacing its dark and moody conclusions with diddlydiddlydiddlywahwah followed by a jazz club-style bass solo. You can almost hear bass player Hank Schroy’s head nodding as it happens. Mine too, but for a different reason. Frankly, I would have enjoyed the silence had there been any.

    That’s the main issue with this collection and albums of this type. Vernon Reid is clearly a very talented guitar player. However, guitar players do not need to breathe in between musical phrases, thus instrumental sections lack natural gaps and pauses. As Emperor Joseph II said in Amadeus, “It’s quality work. But there are simply too many notes, that’s all.” After a while, the rambunctious noodling becomes tiresome, and when you add this to the scarcity of any songs, or even tunes masquerading as songs, you find yourself wishing the whole experience was just over. I mentioned Living Colour so much at the beginning of this piece because when you listen to this album you realise precisely what it was that made them great. They had songs with words in them that allowed the listener a little recovery time before the next guitar offensive.

    originally on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/vernon_reid_and_masque_other_true_self-2495676723.html
  • PÉREZ PRADO: THE BEST OF PÉREZ PRADO – THE ORIGINAL MAMBO NO. 5

    PÉREZ PRADO: THE BEST OF PÉREZ PRADO – THE ORIGINAL MAMBO NO. 5

    Before Lou Bega ripped off “Mambo #5”, and even before a well-known beer manufacturer borrowed “Guaglione” for their success commercial campaign in the UK, Pérez Prado was already a legend. He was one of the more influential bandleaders of the 1940s and 1950s and helped carve out a genre of music that (although considered a fad at the time) has long outlived him. As result of this longevity, it’s extremely difficult to think of things to say about the music on this album that hasn’t already been said, as most of it has been around for 60 years or more. However, it is almost impossible to guess the age from the sound quality of these recordings. They have been lovingly restored and re-mastered for this 22- track retrospective that covers pretty much all of the bases of Prado’s career.

    PÉREZ PRADO

    THE BEST OF PÉREZ PRADO – THE ORIGINAL MAMBO NO. 5

    Legacy

    2006-02-07

    If you have had any interaction with popular culture in the last half a century, then you will have at some point encountered some of the music that appears on this set. You may remember “Patricia” for its use in the fountain scene in Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, or (if you are from the UK) “Guaglione” when it was employed on a really creepy Guinness advert in the 1990s. That music that David Letterman uses for his “comedy” montages is nearly always Prado. You know this music even if you think that you don’t.

    Nevertheless, this is not a dry and dusty archive record. What is on offer on this CD is golden summer magic. It is the kind of music that you should listen to while sitting outside drinking margaritas and getting sunstroke. In fact, this collection goes so well with sun and cocktails I am transported, while listening, to such a sun-kissed place. Instead of a wet and windy April afternoon in Amsterdam, I can see girls in skimpy swimwear carrying salted tequila mixed drinks out of my window. (That is, until “Guaglione” comes on, and then they are carrying Guinness.) Are you wishing you were here yet?

    Most of the tracks on this compilation are quite fine examples of Cuban music from the post-Second World War era. Despite this, there were many complaints levelled at Prado in his lifetime for whitening his sound. In this nostalgic glance over his career you can kind of hear that happening, too. For example, on “Quién Será”, which unfortunately sounds not unlike the theme from the Munsters and the frankly awful “Heigh-Ho (The Dwarf’s Marching Song)”. Yes, you heard that right, a mambo version of a Disney tune. The sleeve notes would have you believe that this is some kind of knowing subversion on the part of Prado. He was some kind of mambo punk rocker. Nope, horrible cash-in, I’m afraid.

    Which brings me to the “Why does this record even exist?” question. Surely there are already multiple versions of Pérez Prado compilations on the market? To my knowledge it is not his birthday or the anniversary of his death, so why did RCA/Legacy choose now to release this addition to the Prado catalogue? This mystery remains unsolved. Unless, of course, some fat cat in a business suit decided that the CD should be released because the music is good rather than because it will make money. Hmmm. Wonders will never cease.

    Sure, there have been cooler artists to come from Cuba, Omara Portuondo being one of them, and several other artists “discovered” by Ry Cooder. I am sure that their records will live on after they are no longer with us. However, none of them have touched the mainstream of pop music quite like, or for as long as, Pérez Prado. That track record is almost enough in itself for you to want some of his music in your collection, and if that isn’t enough, it will make you hallucinate that the sun is shining when it plainly ain’t.

    originally posted on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/prez_prado_the_best_of_prez_prado_the_original_mambo_no_5-2495676624.html