Various Artists – Verve Remixed (Verve): This comp has great potential but doesn’t really follow up. Take some of today’s electronic musicians and have them remix jazz classics from the Verve catalog. Sounds good on paper, but the album turns out to be pretty boring. Most of the tracks are paint-by-numbers lounge-jazz stuff that is very prevalent in your average chillout room. Only a couple of tracks do anything interesting. Rae and Christian’s remix of Dinah Washington’s “Is You Is or Is You Ain’t My Baby” mates the lounge-jazz with the more bouncier bits of the original song. German whizkids De/Phazz turn in a blessed out trip-hop version of Ella Fitzgerald’s “Wait ‘Til You See Him”. It’s the tracks that use more jazz than electronics that are the best here. Quite ironic for a remix album.
Final Grade: C+
Fidgital – Spyglass (Independent): Amazing stuff has been coming out of Vancouver lately. Seems to indicate something exciting is happening there in the way of electronics. Fidgital is the latest in the new wave of Vancouver based electronic musicians, and one of the most unique so far. The group describe themselves as “big band spy techno”, which is as good a name as anyone could give them. 50s jazz beats with loud brass sections propel straight up driving house and sultry ambient pieces along. If it weren’t for the modern electronics, the album could stand as a soundtrack for a Bogart movie. The music even stands up after switching from fast tempo to a slower pace. All around good! (www.fidgital.com)
Final Grade: A
Plaid – P-Brane EP (Warp): Continuing the recent trend for Eps, Warp delivers another nugget here. Plaid are notorious for straddling the line between straight-up techno dance and IDM, though this EP is on the dance side of things. This EP is surprisingly accessible and strange electronic noodling is kept to a minimum. Still, this album won’t put you to sleep either. It’s intelligent dance music that doesn’t insult your intelligence by trying to be too intelligent. Good, but too short.
Final Grade: A-
Prefuse 73 – The ’92 vs. ’02 Collection (Warp): Warp scores another great album with this one. This 4 track EP is way too short, since all the tracks here leave you wanting more. Prefuse make glitchy trip hop that you can lounge and chill to, but not so relaxing that you call fall asleep. The stand out track is the #4, “Love You Bring”, which uses a woman’s vocal sample, cuts it up to match the beat, yet still keep it soothing. Brilliant stuff.
Final Grade: A
Parabola – Voice of Arcs (Moss Elf): Parabola are a hard band to drop into a category. Their influences are pretty clear (experimental electronics and free jazz), but what they do with them is the problem. Voice of Arcs (their second release) is a skittering and very dissonant mix of jazz, modern krautrock, trip hop and rock. Not to say you can’t listen to it, it just takes a bit of effort. In typical style for experimental musicians, none of the 17 tracks on this album are labelled. I recommend this to those of you who aren’t too sure what you want from music. Odds are, you’ll find something here to entertain you.
Final Grade: B-
Various Artists – Wood: Choice Cuts (Tar Media): Tar Media, based in New Brunswick, have put out some interesting releases in the past, mostly merging hip-hop and lounge style electronica. This new comp teams up the Tar Media crew with a European label called dD that do roughly the same thing. Surprisingly, this comp is really on the downbeat side. Considering some of the crazy stuff that Tar Media are known for, it’s a bit surprising to see a comp of nothing but slow lounge electronics. As a result, the album never seems to get moving. The drones and lounge sounds are great, but they all seem to swim together at some point. Nice try, but this is an album I’d tend to go to sleep to.
Final Grade: B-