MC Trachiotomy--w/Love From Tahiti
Bulb 2002
MC Trachiotomy's first album, Robot Alien or Ghost, was such an overwhelming work of genius, just coming anywhere near that level with the follow-up would have to be considered a triumph. Surely, there's no way the brilliance of that first album could be surpassed, right? Wrong. On his new album, w/Love From Tahiti, MC Trachiotomy has blown the lid off of something inconceivably great, knocking the proverbial ball out of the ballpark, into the stratosphere, and over a few dimensions.
While Robot Alien or Ghost was simply beyond words, MC Trachiotomy slows things down just enough on w/Love From Tahiti to allow a base description for what's going on musically. The recipe for most of these songs is: one driving beat, combined with a looped sample of some tasty old R&B/soul, and some random craziness thrown in, to taste. It sounds pretty simple, but that "random craziness" wild card makes it impossible to completely describe what this stuff sounds like. That's the thing that makes w/Love From Tahiti somehow more incredible than the first album--MC Trachiotomy has taken loop based music, typically a very linear approach, and made it more warped and angular than the human mind can comprehend. What's going on here isn't really a straight "point A-to-point B" proposition--and it's those wonderfully strange stuttering detours along the way which make this listening journey something to be cherished. All of this is even more amazing considering the fact that, when you program your CD player to repeat the entire album after the fifteenth and final track (before the bonus tracks kick in), the record becomes one endless loop. Probably the best base description for how this sounds, thanks to the laid-back samples used throughout, would be to say: if humans put Barry White on the turntable when they're feeling in the mood, extraterrestrials rock MC Trachiotomy's w/Love From Tahiti when it's time to get their freak on.
As usual, MC Trachiotomy delivers greatness, song after song. That being said, the middle part of w/Love From Tahiti's order brings his most incredible tunes to date. The two standout tracks, "Long To Hold You" and "Bareboat Blessing," can only be described as beautiful. "Long To Hold You" is especially hypnotic, with MC Trachiotomy's Beefheart-via-garabage disposal vocal delivery morphing into something that sounds like Bob Dylan after being powerbombed on a concrete floor--stunning.
Needless to say, this is something you really have to hear for yourself to understand. Even to say w/Love From Tahiti is the must-hear album of the year seems to sell it short--MC Trachiotomy is on a plateau all his own. If you act fast, the first pressing of this CD has five hidden bonus tracks presenting glimpses of MC Trachiotomy's past and future. For the record, the past was great, the future is bright, and the present is spectacular.
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