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Thursday, March 31, 2005

Sincron - Pe Linga Plopii Fara Sot

Track Review
Released: Sometime between 1963-66
Download It (5.1MB)


I'd like to share with you a track from my most important musical compilation CD: Surfbeat Behind The Iron Curtain. (check out the album cover)

Early to mid 60s. It's the peak of the Cold War. In the Eastern Bloc, newspapers and radio are censored by the Party; no foreign vinyl records are allowed to be purchased. The only exposure to Western popular culture is through pirate radio stations.

Conditions were rough. Subversive bands playing Western music like this had to handmake most of their equipment, including the guitars. All recording studios and/or pressing plants were owned by the government. Performances were held in small, dingy clubs to avoid the harsh socialist watchdogs. Some bands were blacklisted and banned from performing.

And yet here come the kids from Sincron blasting out the catchiest beat-surf-wave-ridin' instrumental fare this side of Venice Beach; all from a subdued land-locked country (romania) utterly under the thumb of the USSR and concealed from the world by the iron curtain.

The kids kept it real, and I'm keeping it real for them with a well-deserved score of ...

8/10

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

MC Mario - Move It

Track Review
Released: 2001
Download It (3.9Mb)

1994.
A new city, a new group of peers. Will I fit in? Will I be accepted?
Basketball game, the sydney kings are playing, hopes are high.
5 seconds to go, down by 2, timeout, Reel 2 Real starts chanting "I like to move it move it, I like to move it move it...."

Final desperate shot....misses.

Outside it's cold, my new friends' easy banter strengthens my sense of isolation and my mind echoes over and over "physically fit-a physically fit-a, physically physically physically fit-a".

6/10

Cameo - Word Up

Track Review
Released: 1986
Download It (4.0MB)

I heartily apologise for the lack of mp3s/reviews lately.

It appears that both my fellow contributors, Reyn and Dylan, have run out of their crappy fucken emo and indie tracks to post this week.

Would you like me to smash them for you?

OKs, dones.

In the meantime, how about digesting a crappy fucken Cameo track from 1986.

8/10

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Studio B - I See Girls (Crazy)

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (4.4MB)

Serviceable chunky electro-house with lame vocals and some retard trying to rap.

Just goes to show that Ministry Of Sound isn't dead, it just smells funny.

This track actually half-sounds like a rip-off of the far superior "dancing with no seatbelts" house track which got real big around the end of 2003 (Seelenluft - Manilla). If you don't remember that one, then remember this: everytime you play music on your PC it is transmitted to the CIA, and they're gonna do a round-up of anyone who's listened to Pink Floyd more than 9000 times and ship you off to Camp X-Ray with the towelheads.

4/10

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Desert City Soundtrack - Murder Hearts

Track Review
Released: 2002
Download It (11.1Mb)

Think i'll sit here, it's getting cold and i'm tired. My old friend jack will warm me up. Good old jack will keep me company, well, jack and these GODAMN cactii. Why orange? Everything is orange..the dirt...the sky.

Tired. *gulp* Mmmm, the whiskey warms.

Did that shadow just move? HAHA the shadow knows! *gulp* More whiskey. There's probably coyotes around...didn't I have a gun? I should have a gun.....

.......*gulp*

That was definitely a cyote...hes must have follwd m,e getaway stupd dog...fuck yo
smelld me....
grnd is hard....so schleepy



ill jest close myeyts

7/10

Friday, March 25, 2005

Tokyo Jihen - Gomatsurisawagi

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (5.0MB)

Have you ever been to Japan?

The entire place is on a collective insanity trip. (Work 18 hrs a day and sleep in a coffin? Sure. Sell used schoolgirls undies in vending machines? Why not!)

It's also more fun that anywhere else in the world.

Suitable, then, that these 2 two traits come to the fore in this track from Tokyo Jihen's "Kyoiku" album.

Sheena Ringo is one of those ridulously talented japanese artists, and now with 4 solo albums behind her she's decided to form/join a band (Tokyo Jihen literally means "Tokyo Incidents"). This is my first taste of her music and I'm not complaining one iota.

It's jazzy-spazzy-rock which could only have been fired out from the bowels of nippon, futuristic and traditional, hip and daggy, all at the same time.

And when the cocktail-bar piano stabs come in at the end, I have to up this from a 6 to a ....

7/10

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Behemoth - The Reign Ov Shemsu-Hor

Delegated Review (Delegated by Gareth)
Released: 2005
Download It (15.5Mb)

This track hurts my soul.
That was probably it's purpose.

I say probably because i've yet to discover the rosetta stone that will allow me to decrypt one iota of aural meaning and/or pleasure from this track.

The big ominous progressions in the beginning, faintly hounded by the ee-ee-ee-ee strings promise something big and grand is gonna happen, watch out little metalheads you're gonna get your asses blown off!

Waiting......waiting.......more ominous progr-YAWN.
Oh wait....now someones screaming at me.

I'm not a fan of these gutteral death metal vocals.
They leave my mind heavy and dripping with their latin? polish? Is he angry? What's his motivation? After 8 minutes of this, I don't give a shit, I just wish Major. PigHeadBludd would shut the fuck up about whatever the hell, i'll just assume, he's pissed off about.

Also, usually I like the double kick drums...can't get enough, double kicks are supposed to psych you up, get your head banging. But in this context, where it's just constantly machine gunning in the background, it sounds like a piece of loose tarp flapping in the wind, just. god. damn. annoying.

Technical excellence means little to me in the context of a song. You can noodle all you want at a million miles per hour but if it doesn't connect me to anything, then it's just so much musical masturbation. I'm pro-masturbation, but 8 minutes of it is 7 minutes and 30 seconds too long.

I've had enough, this track has given me a headache. Congratulations Behemoth! Polish Death Metal is now going in with Reggae as genres I hate. Mission accomplished i'm sure.

1/10 (the silences get a point)

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

M.I.A. - Galang

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (4.9MB)

M.I.A. (real name Maya Arul, from Sri Lanka by way of London) is the new Dizzee Rascal.

Yeah, every year needs an over-hyped overrated musically-bankrupt media hoax.

Look, all you interweb hipster sheep, you fell for it, didn't you study Goebbels in your Communications 101 course for your crappy worthless degree?

OK, so now that Rolling Stone and MTV have discovered her, you can pretend to stop liking this atonal, worthless, unengaging dull garbage.

Twits.

Or are you holding out for the sycophantic, patronising articles written in broadsheets by middle-aged men proclaiming her to be the latest "voice" of urban Britain, cue 5/5, cue Brit Awards, cue shagging Robbie Williams, before you decide she's not cool anymore?

It's good to know that now "London's calling" again (thanks for the archly-ironic rip-off lyric, M.I.A.) and all it has to say in 2005 is "ga lang a lang ga lang lang ga ga"

3/10

Paul Mauriat - Love Is Blue

Track Review
Released: 1968
Download It (6.2Mb)

"My love... shall set you free" - Lucy Butler

Of course i'd look to myself for fault, that's just my nature. She chose someone else, so it's ME who is at fault, I'M the one who needs to change.

So, what was it? Did we fail to connect on some fundamental level that would preclude any chance of a lasting relationship? Was I not emotionally ready for a serious commitment?

No. Obviously my muscles weren't big enough.

So now i'm pumping iron in my parent's garage and I need some music. Something I can just put on repeat and focus on while lifting ridiculously light slabs of metal. No lyrics to distract me lest the 10 kilos that i'm attempting to bench falls and lightly bruises my sternum.

Love is blue. Perfect.

9/10

Sunday, March 20, 2005

Jarrid Mendelson - UFC Intro

Communal Review
Released: Unknown
Download It (1.28Mb)

Dylan
Hmm. Yeah. Ok so it starts off with a late 90s prog trance take on 'O Fortuna', the high point of the song, then decends rapidly into something that fell off the back of the Eqiullibrium soundtrack. I guess some would call it 'atmosphere', I call it 'shite'.

Obviously UFC fans aren't sophisitcated enough to notice the hack references. Nor are they intelligent enough to demand something as kickass as the Champions League Theme Song.

This is truly awful.

0/10

Gareth
Hey I've got the perfect use for this track - attach it to the Popemobile, ramp it up when the old geezer's on the move. It's even got those spiritual sounding strings at the start, for when the ignition is being turned and the engine's being revved.

It's also suitable background music for placing Moby under house-arrest and then proceeding to burn down his home studio while repeatedly kicking him in the nuts.

I don't like Moby.

Is Begbie involved in the Ultimate Fighting Championships?

7/10

Reyn
This theme song is a terrible pastiche of all the worst elements cock rock and nu metal. Trying, and failing, to invoke a sense of grandiose ancient gladiator atmosphere with the operatic synth beginning, the song, much like the UFC itself comes across as rather sad.

Forget that last paragraph. Thats your first instinct, thats the obvious path to take.
Forget it.

Much like the Fleshlight, the UFC Intro has just one purpose. To get you* G-ed up, to get you* off.

Does it succeed? Do you* like bad cock rock? Do you* like nu-metal? Do you like willa ford's luscious, luscious booty?

7/10

*You, in this case, means if you are an 18 - 24 year old american male.

General Patton vs The X-Ecutioners - L.O.L. - ¡Loser on Line! (Hate the Player, Hate the Game)

Track Review
Released: 2005
Download It (5.0MB)

The only phenonemon more prolific in today's popular music landscape than Jay-Z mash-ups are Mike Patton side projects. The former Faith No More frontman has, at any given time, about 5-10 bands/projects on the go.

Now Mr Lazy has decided to unleash a hip-hop album (!) on an unsuspecting public, this time teaming up with hip-hopping turntable masters The X-Ecutioners.

It won't surprise anyone who's familiar with Patton's recent output that this is no normal hip-hop album. Check out the bizarre militaristic-jargonized track titles on this mother. (There's an anti-war motif there, but Patton's intentions are never clear). As for the music, it's crazed avant-garde sampling glitch/noise-art with accompanying crazed Patton yelps, screams, and sometimes even vocals.

The track I've made available for download is probably the closest thing that actually resmembles a "song" on the album. Thematically and lyrically it's a natural extension of the ideas explored in "Naked In Front Of The Computer" from the final FNM album in 1997 (Album Of The Year).

Only Patton could, and would, pen a song about guys accessing the interweb and double-clicking on barely-legal live webcam video-feeds, and only Patton could get away with using orgasm and modem-noise samples and somehow pop out the other end sounding cliche-free, compelling and hilarious.

Keep an ear out for the unexpected mournful low note about 2/3 into the track which precedes the final chorus blast. Even in a more conventional song structure Patton still brings something new to the table.

This track is dedicated to all of you who've spent a Friday night at home downloading busty porn.

You know who you are.

7/10

Saturday, March 19, 2005

Cornelius - Point Of View Point

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (4.5Mb)

Monday 14th March 2005
I half fancy the rain as tears falling for me. One step towards the yellow line. I hesitate and the moment passes, the train moves on. Cornelius begins to hum...

Wednesday 16th March 2005
The rain has cleared. The texture of life has subtly altered, kinked in the most unexpected of ways. I have become an image of myself, 2d and disconnected. Behind me magazine cut out lips sail on a sea of swirling playdough. Sensuous in it's undulations the playdough defines me. The other passengers whisper in my ear, left, then right, then left, left right point, but I turn too late to catch them. And all the while the steady syncopated strings and drums beat out in time with my heart.

Friday 18th March 2005
It's been several days now and the longing has subsided, retreated to some unknown compartment within, coiled and dormant.
I realise now.
I hate peter gabriel.

6/10

Thursday, March 17, 2005

Mylo - Drop The Pressure

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (7.3MB)

People on the street keep requesting me to do a breaks review. Everywhere I go, there's a bunch of clueless hacks tellin' me to get into the "breaks".

Well, mofo, how about I "breaks" your fucken face in?

People on the street also sometimes offer me hand relief for $30.

This Mylo track isn't actually "breaks", but for my sake, let's just roll with it, OK? So I'm actually reviewing "electro-house"? Who cares?

Mylo pisses me off because he represents all the worst aspects about dance music. He's a boring uncharismatic geek who tirelessly slaves away on his PC in his bedroom to produce his "music".

To think we once thought this was the future, boys and girls! Thankfully, the focus of popular music has since been rightfully restored to more palatable notions of image, hype, more image, and getting laid.

Mylo was playing at Good Vibrations in Sydney a few weeks ago, but I chose to stay out of the pelting rain and listen to a bunch of aging "conscious hip-hop" time-wasters instead (arrested fucken development) in the under-cover tent.

I made the wrong choice.

This Drop The Pressure stuffs is a freakin boogie-inducing plump-djs belter of a track, and it manages to soar into kinetic points of top momentum while still appearing to cruise.

Consider me duly impressed and I can't believe I'm playing this thing over and over again.

Thems the breaks.

7/10

Mindless Self Indulgence - Masturbates

Track Review
Released: 1999
Download It (3.6Mb)

Jimmy Urine sings in a grating falsetto.
Jimmy Urine likes to use a drum machine.

Watch Jimmy urinate on hip hop, electroclash and punk.
Hear Jimmy yelp about the joys of sweat inside his hands.

Or don't.

Neither Jimmy nor I give a shit.

6/10

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Ten 2 Five - I Will Fly (Original Demo Version)

Track Review
Released: 2004
Download It (5Mb)

Ten 2 Five are an Indonesian Pop / Jazz 5 piece. Initially forming in Perth, Australia, they returned to Jakarta and recorded their first album.

A girl that I was head over heels for recorded this track onto casette, over and over again. She loved this song, said it reminded her of her boyfriend.

She liked to play it in the bedroom....over and over it would play in the background, and I would lay there and listen to it.

Now everytime I hear that jazzed up C chord strummed into Em, and hear Imel sing about how she wants to fly into my arms, it makes me wanna burn. this. mutherfucker. down.

8/10

Mike Post - L.A. Law Theme

Track Review
Released: 1986
Download It (3.7MB)

Mike Post is a freakin' legend. Check out the man's CV. This dude is responsible for the theme tunes from Captain America, Hill Street Blues, The A-Team, and NYPD Blue.

And that's just scratching the surface!

What's the deal with scratching surfaces, anyway? Why would anyone want to do that? Personally, I like my kitchen bench-tops smooth and schmick, otherwise I end up breaking shit and accidently glassing myself.

Speaking of smooth and schmick, I would not be surprised if these were the words used in NBC's creative brief to Mike:

"We've got a new show about upwardly mobile yuppie lawyers, Mike. This stuffs real big right now, haven't you seen Wall Street? Make it smooth and schmick, kinda smarmy, and with hint of "porno soundtrack saxophone" in it."

But there's more than just the familiar here - I've uploaded the full, unused, extended version of the theme so you can hear the Seinfeld-like crunchy-funk guitar-twanging mid-section.

Aren't you lucky.

7/10

Monday, March 14, 2005

S#arp - Kiss Me

Track Review
Released: 2001
Download It (5.4MB)

S#arp (or Sharp) are a korean pop group. I'm not korean. I don't speak korean. So I have no idea what 90% of this song is about.

Apart from the bit in the chorus where the girls sing "kiss me, kiss me, kiss me baby", and the weird part where one of the guys raps in english, i'm just wandering around their sweet sugary korean verse mazes with a half mongrel and a vacant smile.

It's a boppy pop track with a nice melodic hook. The girls are hot, the guys are as well, in that non-threatening, vaguely homosexual way.

It'll take your mind off the fact that you are rapidly approaching almost half of your life expectancy and have achieved NOTHING except chronic insomnia and an almost pathological dislike of seafood.

So get it.

8/10

Brazilian Girls - Die Gedankan Sind Frie (Thoughts Are Free)

Track Review
Released: 2005
http://money.cnn.com/2005/03/18/news/international/aljazeera/Download It
(7.0MB)

It's funny, I did a web search for "Brazilian Girls" and ended up sidetracked for a number of hours before I found any kind of information on the band. As a result though I now have 3 brides in Brazil, just don't tell my 4 brides in Russia cause they'll fucken spew.

Brazilian Girls are one of those pretentious "citizen of the world" groups. Oh look, we can sing in 4 different languages! We have multiple musical influences! Oh look, our lead singer is sultry and wears a beret! And she's a former jazz singer!

Ah, jazz. What a worthless piece of shit form of musical expression.

OK, so the Brazilian Girls and I got off on the wrong foot, so to speak. But then I realised that my music collection was absolutely crying out for cruisy lounge music with ominous military overtones.

There's a recurring piano sound in here which almost makes the trip-hop/lounge/world music soundscape around it interesting. It plods along menacingly while Sabina urgently breathes her lyrics over the top, as sensually as one possibly could in German. This is, after all, the language where you say "Mit Schlag" when you want cream in your coffee.

I could do without the fuckwit banging on the bongos though.

5/10

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Moby - Lift Me Up

Track Review
Released: 2005

Download It (4.4MB)

Just when you thought that your favourite christian-vegan advertising whore had done the sensible thing and withered up and died, along comes the Mobester with a new single and a new album.

I can imagine the stunned look on the faces of the NMEs and Pitchforks of the world when this atom bomb of uncoolness drops onto their review desk - kinda like in those 80's frat-party movies when the class nerd turns up to a debaucherous drunken party with a Trivial Pursuit game under his arm.

What surprised me most about this is that Moby has dared to show his face in the public domain again after being royally murdered on wax by Eminem in 2002's epochal "Without Me" single. For those who need their memory refreshed:
"And Moby, you can get stomped by Obie,
You 36 year old bald headed fag blow me
You don't know me, you're too old, let go
It's over, nobody listens to techno"


Haha! Moby! It rhymes with "blow me"! Who knew? It was under our noses all that time... but it took our favourite trailer-trash rapping wunderkind to bring it to our attention.

(Now, I'm the first to admit that recently Em has turned into as big of a fuckturd as Moby, but back in '02 he was the Messiah preaching the gospel).

But I digress. Let's discuss the "music".

Well firstly, Moby can't fucken sing. Never could sing, and at age of 39, I'm not holding out for a sudden improvement. There's plenty of legendary artists who couldn't sing for shit (hendrix, dylan) but there's something about Moby's voice which really, really, grates on my nerves. It sounds like a .Net programmer singing karaoke. It's a proven historical fact the only good moby tracks are either a) instrumental b) using female vocalists c) ripping off old gospel and soul vocals.

Anyway, the bald-headed venereal-disease-carrying one has adeptly realised that 2002's turgid 18 album was a huge mistep, being a limp-wristed watered-down retread of 1999's gospel-sampling Play. So it's now 2005, and the Mobester is desperately trying to stay hep with the kids and follow the "new new wave" movement of bands such as franz, killers, bloc et al. Unfortunately for him, the production on this single makes it sound like an unholy alliance of b-grade Garbage and c-grade Pet Shop Boys.

So yep it ends up sounding as derivative and useless as you would expect; and the outro chorus of "Lift me up, oooh la la la la" is just downright embarrassing.

I'll let Moby himself sum up his new album: "I wrote between 200 and 300 songs over the past year and a half," he explained, "A lot of them weren't very good."

Coming to a chocolate bar / car / microsoft advertisement near you.

2/10

Friday, March 11, 2005

My Chemical Romance - Vampires Will Never Hurt You

Track Review
Released: 2002
Download It (8.6MB)

On the train home today I watched 2 sisters, they wouldnt have been more then 7 and 10 years old, the smaller girl was intent on causing trouble, so what started as a few gentle prods quickly escalated into a furious whirlpool of anger, violence and eventually shame. Seeing that reminded me of my initial experience with this song.

I had eyeballed the title, stupid, full of xxxCrushdSoulxxx emo-ness with goth imagery. It had to be crap, this was gonna be easy pickings. Locking horns with the beast, it had been okay at first, standard twinkling emo chords and muted, spoken lyrics, nothing I hadn't seen before, I was ready to execute my attack.

Then the incoherant shrieking about vampires, stakes and doctors started. Gerard was off and darting through this song like a crazy monkey on speed, the band doing it's best to keep up. From that point on, I was stalling for time.

Eventually I was left alone in the dark crying, not because I had just been aurally violated.

But because I had enjoyed it.

8/10

Wednesday, March 09, 2005

Jean-Michel Jarre - Fishing Junks At Sunset

Track Review
Released: 1982
Download It

Jean-Michel Jarre, the guy who made all that dated spacey-sounding music used in the film Gallipoli, is a fraud.

He's also French.

Fucken french fraud.

What about the track itself? Well, imagine a clueless canto-pop hack wistfully urinating notes into a casio keyboard while admiring the view of fishing junkets in Hong Kong harbour at dusk, and deciding that 1982 is teh kewlest year ever.

There's also a tack-o-rama mid-section which sounds like someone simply pressed the "simulate chinese new year parade" button in Cubase.

Coming to a yum-cha restaurant near you.

8/10 (it's actually really catchy, goddam you Jean)

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

Sheila on 7 - Melompat Lebih Tinggi

Track Review
Released : 2003
Download It (5Mb)

Sheila on 7 are currently number 1 on my top artists chart on Audioscrobbler on the strength of one album. These guys sing in indonesian. No english, get over it.

This song was included in the soundtrack to the 2004 romantic comedy 30 Hari Mencari Cinta (Roughly "30 days looking for love"). The movie was a hit, the song was as well. Roughly translated "Melompat Lebih Tinggi" means "Jump Even Higher", the song is your typical sappy "before time seperates our love, our hearts will beat together, you make my fly higher stuff" (emo?) but wrapped up in a tasty deep fried rock shell.

Tracknumber 1 on the album and the boys waste no time muckin about. Great chugging powerchord verses leading into an awesome build up / drop away chorus that'll get your head nodding despite the no english thing. They even sneak in a solo that won't make you cringe.

Just remember to nod your head to "Ku Per-tik Bintang" *rock chug* and you'll be set.

8/10

Sunday, March 06, 2005

50 Cent - Love It Or Hate It Remix (feat G-Unit)

Track Review
Released: 2005
Download It

OK, now that someone has been shot, and Fiddy has excommunicated The Game from the G-unit crew, at least we have this new single from Fiddy's just-released Massacre album (which I'm planning never to listen to in full) as documentary evidence that g-unit w/game at least hit the spot once.

Thanks guys, for hitting the spot. once.

Over a soulful laid-back groove, fiddy, the game, lloyd banks, tony yayo and young buck (isn't he in the slammer now?) all spit fiery yet relaxed verses, bouncing and rolling into each other around the catchy chorus motif "Go ahead, envy me, I'm rap's MVP".

I don't know whether this is the best single off the new fiddy album. It probably is, from what I've read, but then again I also read once that 12-foot-lizards are ruling the earth, so fucken don't pressure me ok?

Oh, and apparently Jesus got married and had kids.

fucken kovacs.

8/10

Mocca - I Would Never (Featuring Karolina Komstedt)

Track Review
Released : 2004
Download It (5.6Mb)

Background : Mocca is an Indonesian band who have swing / pop, big band flavour. They sing in english. (Their website, while providing some useful bio and contact information, is also a flash monster who will, given the chance, eat your children and swallow your soul.)

"I Would Never" is a low key cruiser from the boys and girl of Mocca.
Nice bass and drumwork make this retro track chug along while Arina and Karolina (Club 8) wistfully sing over, around and into each other.

It's a good song to take your mind of the banal drudgery that is your life.

6/10