PopMatters home | short takes home | archives
PopMatters Music Short Takes
our brief reviews of new releases
e-mail
print
comment
17 July 2006
Seņor Coconut and His Orchestra, Behind The Mask Remixes 01 / 02 (Essay)
Yellow Magic Orchestra's "Behind the Mask" has been covered at least twice -- once by Eric Clapton, and again, more recently, by Uwe Schmidt, the DJ who calls himself Seņor Coconut. Coconut's version is cheesily samba-riffic, and the four remixes on the second of these two 12" records are lighthearted partygoing fun, bubbling with 'eighties technopop overtones. The "Yellow Miami Magic Sound Orchestra Machine" remix from Original Hamster sounds as if its creator has been listening to Kool And The Gang's "Celebration" and taking notes. "Peter Rap Remix" brings in arcade game sound effects and a chorus that follows the singer around like a pack of dippy budgerigars. As for the other 12", Remixes 01, it's mostly taken up by Ricardo Villalobos who keeps the song going for fifteen and a half minutes by pulling the instrumental sections apart and pinning them down with deep, spitty beats, then reintroducing the voice and gradually letting the song reassert itself, shellshocked but refreshed after its dissection. Al Usher fills the flip side with blits and bleeps. Remixes 02 is the kind of disc you can put on and enjoy without thinking while 01 demands more attention, but both are good.
[Insound]
— Deanne Sole
song samples: [MP3]
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Latin / Electro / Electronica 
Plain White T's, Hey There Delilah (Fearless)
This EP contains a half dozen songs and some videos to boot. And Plain White T's don't take the typical punk rock or power pop approach on this EP beginning with the string-laced, lush title track that brings to mind something Macca might do at some point. It's much better than the live version that has hundreds if not thousands teens singing along. That's quickly put aside though for their bread and butter style with "Easy Way Out" and the frantic, rowdier and mighty fine "Down The Road" that is perfect Warped Tour material. But the highlight of the six comes with "Losing Myself" that builds and builds, bringing to mind the likes of The Odds and Gin Blossoms. While the videos here are okay, the songs on the disc are generally better, with "If I Told You" another power pop nugget.
[Insound]
— Jason MacNeil
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Rock
Mike Downey, Adventure, Bless, and Don't Be Sorry (Recordhead/Mr. Whiggs)
As the title indicates, Mike Downey's latest album has an overall theme of exploring the new, of setting aside the past and moving forward into something unexpected and unplanned-for. Lyrically the album looks introspectively towards both past history and the surprises of the present -- songs like "Oh Randomness" and "Event Camera" memorably describe a new relationship and new circumstances through small details. Appropriately echoing this is the way Downey has taken the troubadour-style pop-rock of the two albums he recorded as The National Splits and given it a 2006 upgrade, recording on computer and incorporating loops and beats into his songs. He manages to broaden not just the musical palette but the emotional scope of his songs; they feel deeper and even more resonant, while retaining his knack at a raw, immediate sort of pop melody. With the closing song "I'm an Engineer (And Things Get Weird)" he revisits, and reinvents, a line from a song by his first band Wolfie, bringing his musical story full circle while looking firmly towards tomorrow.
[Insound]
— Dave Heaton
"Oh, Randomness": [MP3]
"Rats Were Comrades": [MP3]
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Indie / pop 
Run Run Run, Endless Winter (Song & Dance)
The group Run Run Run hearkens back to the shoegazer age, which was a short-lived musical era. In fact, the shoegazer description describes the bored musicians that played it, rather than tell you anything about the sound itself. If you sorely miss that shoegazing vibe, the track "Song and Dance", with its slow beat and jangle-y guitar, is this CD's shoegazerist moment of all. But if you want to hear Run Run Run run, if you will, far from such easy categorization, skip straight to "Try". This one chugs along nicely to a Franz Ferdinand power-pop groove. However, if you're looking for something a little quieter, the partially acoustic "2 A.M.", with its hushed keyboards, has your name all over it. Run Run Run is a one group that provides very specialized nostalgia, indeed.
[Insound]
— Dan MacIntosh
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Indie / rock
Roommate, Celebs EP (Fresh Produce)
A reissue of Brooklynite Kent Lambert's 2002 EP, Celebs was originally made on a dare. And it sounds it. "Hindsight is 20/20" is noteworthy for its attempt to do for Mark David Chapman (John Lennon's assassin) what Sufjan Stevens would later do for John Wayne Gacy. But Lambert is missing the crucial element of empathy that makes Stevens's portrait so haunting. What's left is stream-of-consciousness piano balladry about River Phoenix on "RP" ("I wonder what you would've thought / Of your brother Joaquin in Gladiator"). And the electronic touches sound like, well, someone making music on a dare.
[Insound]
— John Bergstrom
"RP": [MP3]
multiple songs: [MySpace]
Indie / pop 
.: posted by Editor 8:03 AM
