Archive for the electronic category
Dan Deacon
by teabog on June 6th, 2007
Dan Deacon
“Snake Mistakes” (From the album Spiderman of the Rings)
This is a very good album. It’s all trippy and shit. It’s electronic, but it’s hardly dancy even though it’s certainly not ambient or glitch or idm or anything like that. It’s more like some playful, experimental pop music that uses a computer for most of its instrumentation. Think of it as the Beach Boys on crack, only without the Beach Boys.
As far as I can tell from the lyrics, the song is first a guy saying he keeps making “snake mistakes” and then wishing some bees will leave him alone. Then there’s a computer voice chant about how the computer voice’s dad is the coolest dad there is.
Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”
by teabog on March 13th, 2007
Blitzen Trapper “Whiskey Kisser”
“Whiskey Kisser” (From the albumBlitzen Trapper)
If you’re judging bands only by the quality of their recorded output, Blitzen Trapper is easily the most unfairly ignored American group of this decade. I liken their releases to early Beck in that they manage to blend and bend dozens of different genres while producing distinctly American rocks that’s both easily accessible and completely unique sounding. It’s not only good music; it’s appealing music, the kind of music that hepsters would initially attach themselves to and then all sorts of college kids would pick up on. This is like Modest Mouse or Spoon, only better than the recent releases of either group. Simply put, it’s very good music that everyone can enjoy.
Why, then, does no one listen to it? As far as I can tell, it’s only because they’re self-released, and the band’s meager budget doesn’t buy them much press coverage. Their self-titled first album, from which the tobacco-soaked, sun-stained “Whiskey Kisser” was taken, wasn’t reviewed anywhere. Their second album, Field Rexx got a fair amount of overwhelmingly positive press coverage, but received little support otherwise. Yeah, a good review in Music for Robots might encourage a few people to check for the group at Amazon, but few are going put forth the kind of effort that tracking down a reasonably priced copy of a self-released album requires.
Anyhow, here’s Blitzen Trapper. They’re really, really good, and you should do what it takes to find and buy their albums.
Blitzen Trapper’s official website
Covox “Computer Love” (Kraftwerk rendered on a Nintendo)
by teabog on February 13th, 2007
Covox
“Computer Love” (8-bit Kraftwerk Cover)
This comes from an audio compilation titled “8 Bit Operators.” That compilation is nothing but covers of Kraftwerk songs done by contemporary electronics artists and performed entirely on 8-bit video game machines.
If this sounds like something that would interest you—if you’re already into either Kraftwerk or 8-bit music—then go ahead and download. You won’t be disappointed.
The rest of the disc is pretty damn good, but the vocals aren’t done in 8-bit and often distract from the rest of their respective tracks. I mean, it’s cool hearing the machine sounds of Kraftwerk sound so much more machiney, but the effect is greatly diminished when the music is set against vocals that sound much more human than the original voices did. I know that it’s extremely hard to emulate the human voice on pre-cd videogame hardware, though (“wise from yoar gwabe!”), and so it’s excusable.
Covox’s official website.
Buy the “8-Bit Operators” collection at Amazon.
Golden Shower
by teabog on January 27th, 2007
Golden Shower
“Video Computer System”
Golden Shower is a group of electronic pranksters from Brazil. I don’t quite remember how I first came across their website, but it might have had to do with my habit of going to google and then typing in the name of a random country along with the name of a random sex act and seeing what wonderful things came up. I gave up this hobby a long time ago (the horrors of “Paraguay Donkey Punch” still haunt me to this day), but nonetheless kept a file full of the more “interesting” sites and sound I came across in my misadventures.
Far and away the best (and, oddly enough, least offensive) of all of the things I found was Golden Shower, the band, from Brazil, the country. They’ve never released an album and they’ve never toured, but they have a whole website that’s full of MP3s.
The song posted here, Video Computer System, was created entirely using a Commodore 64. It rocks. The rest of the songs on the site are patchworks combinations of protools beats and sound clips from film and television—pretty much like every other internet-only electronic artist only way better than just about every other internet-only electronic artist. If you should happen to visit their site, I recommend you download “Kiss the Cow.” It heavily samples Tex Avery cartoons.
Electronic
Sounds like: If M83 played their music on a Sega Master System. Or, if the theme to Streets of Rage 2 was supposed to make you want to dance instead of kill.
Golden Shower’s official website with a ton of free, legal mp3s.