2pworth

Tag: electronic

  • DAT POLITICS: BLITZ GAZER

    DAT POLITICS: BLITZ GAZER

    Electronic music can often be a miserable affair. Sometimes artists equate electronic with experimentation to the point that the outcome can be somewhat hard listening. These albums can be almost like an endurance test to see if you can get to the end. Happily, this record is nothing like that. DAT Politics’ Blitz Gazer is fun with a capital “F”.

    DAT POLITICS

    BLITZ GAZER

    Sub Rosa

    2012-04-24

    This French electro-pop duo comprises of Claude “Datgirl” Pailliot & Gaetan C. Collett who have been in existence as (an influential) electronic outfit since 1999. There are obvious parallels with Daft Punk and Kavinsky in the sense that they come from the same part of Europe and their focus is on heating up the discotheque. However, to say that they sound like the aforementioned acts doesn’t quite nail it. Their quirkiness alone probably brings them closer to the work of Sébastien Tellier. These are idiosyncratic pop tunes that aren’t really meant to be critiqued, only danced to.

    Pop music really never sounded so “pop” and disposable. It is lacking substance for sure, but who on earth would care about that? This is music for dancing and grinning like a shot fox while you are at it. You will find evidence of some electronic experiments but there is absolutely nothing po-face about this record. The reason for this is simple; it has the 1980s writ LARGE all over its smiley dancey little face. You can’t help yourself but enjoy it.

    With Blitz Gazer DAT Politics have taken the cheesier elements of ’80s dance music (Giorgio Moroder, Harold Faltemeyer, etc.) and poured on some freshly-melted fromage of their own. The more serious songs like “Sourcloud” are blissfully short (clocking in at under 2 minutes) for the rest they throw in all kinds of fun stuff for example the Star Trek “red-alert” noises on “Switch On” (also by the way one of the more serious tunes).

    For the most part we are treated to instrumentals with the occasional sampled voice or barely indecipherable person-noise (like in the fabulously daffy “Hypnotricks”) but every once in a while there is something like a real song. However, when this happens (like on “Melt Down”) it appears to have happened almost by accident, as if the band have dropped their guard for a brief moment or two. No worries, they soon regain their composure and return to bonkers ascending chords and tunes that have slightly jammed feel about them. It is these moments that make the record really worthwhile.

    What’s interesting is that by all accounts this album is a more mature and subdued affair than in previous outings. Phrases such as “sugar-fed optimism” have been used to describe the band’s output in the past. As this album is clearly something of a hyperactive teenager of a record, one shudders to think what the band might have sounded like going through the “terrible twos”. What must this pair sound like live?

    All in all if you are looking for a record to liven up your party or even to combat a long and desperately boring drive Blitz Glazer should be your weapon of choice. A perfect pop performance.

    This review originally appeared on PopMatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/160865-dat-politics-blitz-gazer-2495833629.html
  • SHED: SHEDDING THE PAST

    SHED: SHEDDING THE PAST

    Shedding the Past is a collection of eleven Detroit-style techno tunes by German techno engineer Shed.

    SHED

    SHEDDING THE PAST

    Ostgut

    2008-09-02

    It is a record in the mold of Aphex Twin with a powerful skipping beat that is the trademark of this German hotshot. At times it is intense, monotonous, technically complicated but never dull. From the ambient-tinged “The Lower Upside Down” to the Kevin Sanderson styled (and humorously titled) “Another Wedged Chicken”, one really needs a dark Berlin club in an office block to really appreciate the euphoric highs and beats that wind you. However, even out of that setting Shedding the Past stands up on its own. Detroit techno’s originators may have hailed from Bellville, Michigan but the techno sound was inspired by any number of German electronic musicians, most notably Kraftwerk. Therefore it is fitting that a German engineer should pick up the ball first punted by the Bellville Three and run with it to score a try of his own.

    This review originally appeared on Popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/shed-shedding-the-past-2496119349.html

  • CEDRIC GERVAIS: SPACE MIAMI TERRACE

    CEDRIC GERVAIS: SPACE MIAMI TERRACE

    CEDRIC GERVAIS

    SPACE MIAMI TERRACE

    Yoshitoshi

    2008-05-27

    Space Miami Terrace is one of those “you had to be there” recordings. It is a two CD, 22-track mixed compilation of dance tracks from the Yoshitoshi, Yo! and Shinichi labels. All tracks are mixed together by DJ Cedric Gervais. It stomps along at quite a pace. By listening to the album alone one can only imagine the heat that would be generated by the sweaty bodies dancing to these tunes. Sadly, without being there you don’t really get the feel for most of these recordings. In the end you are left with over two hours of repetitive beats. These are best heard in a dark sweaty club or blasting from the windows of a boy racer’s car as he waits at the traffic lights. The second of the CDs is the more memorable even if only for George Morel & SPJ’s “Let’s Take Drugs” with its humorous use of George W. Bush samples. I suspect that this joke would wear a little thin after a while. Also in the second set and more memorable is Meck Feat. Dino’s ” Feels Like Home (Dave Audé Remix)” with its ever-present sample from Duran Duran’s “Save a Prayer”.

    This review was originally posted on popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/cedric-gervais-space-miami-terrace-2496144046.html

  • 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
  • POLYSICS: NOW IS THE TIME

    POLYSICS: NOW IS THE TIME

    To paraphrase the late John Peel, this record does not fade in rather slowly. It wakes you up to the possibility that music can be simultaneously unusual, raucous, and catchy by kicking you in the private parts.

    POLYSICS

    NOW IS THE TIME

    Tofu

    2006-02-21

    The new album from Polysics Now Is the Time contains their familiar assortment of DEVOesque “technicolor pogo punk”. For the uninitiated this means that the record is a blend of punk sensibilities and synth-pop much in the way that DEVO promised but never quite delivered. The band may look like the aforementioned DEVO with their Day-Glo boiler suits, but musically they use Mark Mothersbaugh & Co. really only as a jumping off point. They are like DEVO only in the same way that The Ramones were inspired by surf and bubble gum. That is to say that you can hear where they are coming from but they sound like their source material cranked up to eleven to the power of the first number that comes into your head.

    Polysics are Japanese, which means that it is hard for this Westerner to decipher what the songs on this album are actually about. Frankly, lead singer Hiroyuki Hayashi could be reading his shopping list. Moreover, Hayashi’s libretto jumps around all over the place; he sometimes uses English, sometimes Japanese, and sometimes their own invented “space language”. So the potential language barrier is leapt over by simply rendering language itself irrelevant. Indeed, the music does the talking here, and the music mostly wants you to mosh around and bang your head. In fact, this review took longer than anticipated because I had to leave it paused on my Mac while I did just that around my office.

    “I My Me Mine” is a prime example of this and of what Polysics have to offer. The song pogos along at furious rate until the chorus blows in, replete with recorder. This instrument adds a cutesy or sinister element depending on your perspective. The track itself is somewhat spikey and recalls some of the more punky elements of Toni Basil. (Never in my wildest dreams did I think that I would write that sentence.) The opener “Teil Teil Teil” is a straight ahead punker that sounds more like the bastard child of The Damned, Big Black and (alright they do sound like them quite a bit) DEVO. Further on in running order they change tack slightly by employing a Talking Heads-style white funk on the rather first-rate “Boy’s Head”. All in all what we have here is the awkward reminder of big hair, (really) bright colours, and shoulder pads. Yep, it’s the 1980s baby!

    It might be easy, because of their quirky dress sense and quirkier still tunes, to write Polysics off as a novelty act. Do that at you peril. Sure there is humour in a lot of the tunes on Now Is the Time, perhaps more than it is possible to discern. However, this is not a comedy act. The energy of their live performance bleeds into this studio recording. Main man Hayashi owns the audience on stage and provides a raw and honest performance that you would not usually associate with electro tinged music.

    If you have never come across Polysics before, this album would be quite a good jumping on point. You should also check out Neu and the “best of” from last year Polysics or Die!!!! or better still go and see them live at some point on their current tour. I can see no reason why this album should not increase the cohort of Polysics fans outside of Japan (where they are already big news). Granted, if you are 30-something then you may have heard similar sounds before, but never played with such vim or vigour.

    this review originally pogoed onto popmatters.com

    https://www.popmatters.com/polysics_now_is_the_time-2495675417.html