In part, this album makes me sad. It makes me doubt the value of the whole electronica thing: we have here assembled many of the most recognized names in electronic music --and none of this album is bad -- it’s just that (for the most part) not a single one of these artists manages to do anything actually original. In fact, they all pretty much create exactly the sound that they always do. So instead of The Postal Service remixing Nina Simone, you have The Postal Service meets Nina Simone, etc. This is all to say, the album is, on the whole, very stylized and the artists do no stray from their comfortable formulas. Putting all this behind, this is a very tight and well-produced album with lots of fun catchy remixes; it just isn’t very interesting musically (considering the material they were working with!). Oh, and The Album Leaf cut is great. Play: 7, 11
1) The postal service turns Nina Simone into a catchy head-nodding pop song. 2) Bent does a nice job matching a quiet understated beat and synths to Billie Holiday’s effortless performance. 3) Very up-tempo remix of Anita O’Day that remains an actual swing cut. 4) Definite Gap-commercial material here. All-too cutesy matching of Sarah Vaughn with a “funky” beat. Picture Sarah Jessica Parker prancing around grinning stupidly. 5) Rich bass-line with house-y beat and Latin drum breakdowns. The vocals and little bits of the original pianos and trumpets are looped and sampled. 6) Fun, upbeat cuts with lots of funky breakbeats. 7) Interesting juxtaposition of the usual hard-hitting RJ breaks with the completely sensual and languid Gilberto vox and backing. Nice cut. 8) Funky breakbeat and piano hook. Fun and dance-y. 9) It’s not really clear what Lyrics Born did to this cut. Just sounds like a Jimmy Smith jam to me, save the looped choruses. 10) Kind of acid house mix of Hugh Mackellar. Has its moments, but the samples from the original track add little. 11) Beautiful stuff here. The Album leaf is their usual tasteful, sensitive understated, and the introspective self, and the Nina Simone vox fit like a glove, it’s as though the song were always meant to be this way. 12) Brooding ambient treatment of Billie Holiday by The Junior Boys. 13) Is this really the same Danger Mouse who meticulously remixed The White Album? Basically a boring break, like lots of static, and what sounds like the entire Dinah Washington song except with an annoying filter on it.
-Mike, i.e. The Professor