DJ Shadow - The Outsider
Panic on the internet! Panic over, MySpace is back in full effect. What a bunch of dependent bastards we are! Anyway, and more importantly, it means I’ve been able to go back and fix Sunday’s Unearthing MySpace Gems article. So, please, please, please, go and check it out and give those artists the time they deserve. Now, on to the serious issue at hand, my review of The Outsider, the new album by DJ Shadow…
I’ve read, spoken, listened, and moaned - but I’ve now decided to review the album without the reference of my prior DJ Shadow knowledge, AKA: I’m not gonna compare this new album to his old work. Instead I shall review it with a clean slate, as I should really, I guess it’s ordinarily too easy to use the older stuff as a yard stick, which is also quite natural (or at least human!). Once I’ve directly reviewed the content, I’ll then summarise and make reference and comparison to the older material.
The album starts with an intro over two minutes long, it’s a piece of dramatic music with an English gentleman speaking about the story of The Outsider. The man speaks about humanity and blah blah blah, it’s pretty pretentious by all accounts. Supposedly the idea of The Outsider is that DJ Shadow feels like one. On to the first proper track of the album This Time (I’m Gonna Try It My Way), this is fantastic. Sounds like an old funk track with kicking drums, guitar samples, strings samples, and catchy vocals. I read that Shadow found the vocal sample at an old recording studio, it was a chap singing along as he tuned his guitar. Anyway, a good start to the album.
Uh oh, time to crunk it up a little, or should I say ‘hyphy’ it up? Being my review, I can only possibly give my own personal thoughts, and as such I can most definitely tell you that this hyphy sound isn’t for me. I like to think I’m a pretty open minded fella, but this appeals to me even less than crunk and UK grime. The emcees Keak Da Sneak and Turf Talk are hardly Mos Def and Chali2na. The track 3 Freaks is just repetitive and annoying - I’m desperately trying to think of some positives, but I just cant. Sadly the track Turf Dancing is even worse, like Shadow smoked some crack before he produced it. I don’t have a problem with aggressive sounds as such, just look at punk rock and dnb, but this stuff totally lacks depth and soul.
Keep Em Close Feat. Nump isn’t on the same hyphy tip, but it’s still that whole ghetto rap feel. Don’t get me wrong, this will appeal to some people, probably people that are 14 years old and have Lil Jon and 50 Cent posters on their walls, but personally I find there to genuinely be nothing appealing from this music. This track even samples gun shots, fighting, and police sirens - g-to-the-hetto y’all. The track with David Banner, Seein Thangs, is some proper cheesy crunk. Those drums are awful. The rolling kick drum and snares, ah man, tonight I’ll shed a tear. To put it in black and white; if you like crunk or hyphy rap music, you’ll like this - if you don’t, you simply wont.
Broken Levee Blues is a two minute break from the aforementioned madness. Funky guitar riff to calm those nerves right back down. No doubt designed more as a bridging track on the album, but thus far (and This Time aside) it’s easily one of the best tracks on the album. The track immediately after is Artifact - it starts in a sort of punk vein, thumping beats with slight distortion, Strokes’esque guitar samples, then half way in it calms a little and then breaks into a sort of alternative upbeat psychedelic track. I wouldn’t say the track was anything special, but in comparison to the hyphy tracks it is amazing.
Backstage Girl brings the album on to another different sound. This track features Phonte Coleman and is probably best described as a rock hip-hop track. A cross genre I’ve never had a problem with, but never been totally over-awed with either. Phonte Coleman seems to possess far better skills as an emcee than Shadow’s hyphy friends, so that’s something. There’s a pretty interesting instrumental breakdown towards the end, but the track seems too long and once again is nothing special.
The next track, Triplicate / Something Happened That Day, is probably one of the better tracks on the album. It uses eerie strings and piano samples, all bridged together, creating that atmospheric build up. Then the drums come in, at first some kick, then a hi-hat, all the while just teasing, building up, half way through we’re treated to an acoustic solo of sorts. Sounds very latin and cinematic, like it was written for a Mexican film. The drums never fully come in, but the rest of the ensemble fully makes up for that, this was clearly meant to be a cinematic piece, and it’s pretty nice. The Tiger also starts in a cinematic vein, very tribal sounding samples and drums, but accompanied by guitar. Ah, hang on, this singer, it’s the guy out of Kasabian. Hmmm… it’s very Radiohead. My comparison is drawn mainly by the way in which Shadow has used a wide array of instruments and samples to create an alternative rock song. It’s an ok track, for all its depth (something the earlier tracks lacked) it still seems to be pretty uninspiring. Perhaps the track will be a grower, or perhaps I’m not totally feeling the alternative rock sound, either way it’s average in my books.
Erase You has wicked drums. But this singer, Chris James, he’s making this all sound even more like a Radiohead track than the Kasabian dude did with the last track. Imagine a Radiohead track with really kicking funk drums, might sound like this. Having said that, I like this track more than I like The Tiger - probably cos of the drums, although Chris James has a good voice. Perhaps not a track I’d stick on repeat, but listening to the album I probably wouldn’t skip it either, it’s not too bad at all. After that we hear the first female vocalist (and only!) on the album, Christina Carter on the track What Have I Done. Another track with latin sounding acoustic guitars, it’s all quite interesting, but it doesn’t really get going till half way through, and even then it sounds like a sort of opera/musical reject track. Nice enough music, but boring as hell. Then it’s back to Chris James on the next track You Made It. This could be a Coldplay track, and at this point I have to remind myself that I did indeed hear a load of hyphy tracks just twenty minutes or so ago. Is this the same album still?! Apparently so. An ok track if you like that sort of Coldplay sound. I can see my play statistics being totally skewed with this album though, about half of the tracks will never get played again. Chris James has a good voice, but I’m bored of it by now. Q-Tip and Lateef make an appearance too, and that’s pretty funky, a hip-hop track with latin guitar samples and a catchy chorus - but if I rationalise and compare it to other hip-hop tracks by other artists that have come out recently, it’s average at best.
One thing from this album really stands out; the totally different sounds on show here. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but this seems to be a mess. It really doesn’t feel like an album at all, more like a compilation. In fact, it’s like when you listen to a movie soundtrack that has a really diverse list of artists. Nothing on this album flows, it’s just a collection of songs, not an album.
On to what everyone is thinking… what the hell has the legendary DJ Shadow done?! Anyone remember that album Entroducing? Maybe it was done by a different DJ Shadow? Sadly not. The thing is, people willing to defend The Outsider seem to be doing so on a track by track basis and also through appreciation of him trying something different. Seriously, there are some alright tracks on the album, nothing mind blowing, and of course there are some real stinkers. But what I’m reviewing here is an album, not a series of tracks per sé, and as such the album is pretty poor. Why should I, the consumer, care about how courageous an artist has been by creating something different to what they normally do? At the end of the day it is a poor album, end of story.
DJ Shadow - Erase You Feat. Chris James
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 1st August.
Useful links:
- Unearthing MySpace Gems
- DJ Shadow website
- Download - DJ Shadow - Erase You Feat. Chris James
News / Reviews / DJ Shadow / Discoveries
Happy Monday to you all. MySpace is still screwed. Turns out it’s to do with a powercut they’ve had in LA, screwed the servers or something. So, still feel bad bout yesterday’s totally bodged Unearthing MySpace Gems article. Once MySpace is back, I’m gonna edit that entry and get it done proper, then order you all to go back and check out those pages, and you will comply, oh yes, you will comply. Anyway, news…
Badly Drawn Boy is back! This is big news to me, being a huge BDB fan (that doesn’t mean I’m really fat). He is set to release his fifth album Born In The UK on 23rd October. This will be his first release under new label EMI, after he split with XL shortly after the 2004 release One Plus One Is One. I cannae wait man!
Kings Of Leon are to release a “download only” EP entitled Day Old Belgian Blues. It will be a collection of live tracks taken from their previous two albums. As the title suggests, all the tracks were recorded in Belgium. You can download it now at their official website. A third KOL album is due out some time next year.
The reggae label Easy Star are to record a dub version of Radiohead’s OK Computer. This follows their previous cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon, of which their version was called Dub Side Of The Moon. This project is known as Radiodread. This is due out on 21st August.
Not exactly breaking news, but interesting never-the-less, the shortlist for this years Mecury Prize has been revealed. The nominees are; Arctic Monkeys, Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan, Editors, Guillemots, Richard Hawley, Hot Chip, Muse, Zoe Rahman, Lou Rhodes, Scritti Politti, Sway, and Thom Yorke. There’s a few there I’ve never heard, but from what I have heard, I’d quite like to see Lou Rhodes win. Just really hope Sway doesn’t win, still cant work out why all the fuss over that chap.
Now then, DJ Shadow. Hmmm… seems that our fears may have been well founded. I’ve only heard three tracks from the new album so far, two of which were terrible beyond belief. I’ve read plenty of interviews and reviews recently, and basically the things I picked up on in particular were; he claims that everyone tried to copy the style of Entroducing, so he wanted to make an album nobody would be able to copy - yeah, or perhaps they just wouldn’t want to! Plus, he’s brown nosing this whole hyphy movement, and from what I can gather it’s literally just because it’s a bay area movement and that’s where he’s from - wouldn’t be an issue if hyphy wasn’t so damn shit. Anyway, I read a review and the summary was that it seemed very incoherent; 50% hyphy, 50% not so hyphy. The reviewer said that the record seemed like 3 separate EPs, and that anyone buying it cos they like the hyphy sound would be disappointed cos some of it is most definitely not hyphy. What makes it all the worse is that a separate hyphy album is coming out that will feature these Shadow tracks, why couldn’t he just have this hyphy stuff as a side project?! Oh well, it’s his life, just hope he doesn’t cry too much when the thing doesn’t sell. On top of all of this I still need to hear it for myself. I’m gonna do a big old review then!
Some people are naturally more open minded or just have a wider variety of tastes than others, but I believe all of us have to - on occasion - open our minds a bit wider than usual. I was recently sent an email that offered me the opportunity to check out a group called Cagey House. I guess you’d say they are an alternative electronica group. Their album Elephant Orange is now out and actually available for free download at the website of the netlabel Umor Rex. Anyway, this will mainly appeal to the proper electronica heads, but basically Cagey House have created a unique sound where by they use electronic samples of the classic variety to make compositions. Don’t let this put you off, but think along the lines of 8bit synths, but with a lot more class and depth. There’s quite a nostalgic sci-fi sound to the music, it really is almost as if they’ve deliberately gone for a style that classically sounded quite cheesy, but they’ve deliberately put the effort in to make it classy. It might not necessarily be an album I come back to time and again, but it is a genuinely interesting and insightful listening experience, and full credit to the guys for even attempting something so original in it’s own little way. Check out this track, if you wanna a taster before downloading…
Cagey House - Bebe Ebullient
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 31st July.
Lastly I just wanna mention a few names that I’ve recently listened to; Asamov (now known as The AB’s) with their album And Now - if you like your indie hip-hop, get these guys checked! Same goes for The Procussions with their latest album 5 Sparrows For 2 Cents, some seriously good stuff. I also checked Aloe Blacc’s new release on Stones Throw; Shine Through - some indie R&B style vocals over nice hip-hop beats, even finishes up the album with some Spanish tracks, including a cover of John Legend’s Ordinary People. Other than that, I also peeped the 2006 edition of Ninja Tune’s Zentertainment compilation. Basically a preview of stuff out this year on Ninja Tune, Big Dada, and Counter Records. There’s a good mixture on there and it also includes a new Bonobo track…
Bonobo feat. Bajka - Nightlite
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 31st July.
Anyway, till next time suckas. Although I’m the one that feels like a sucka at the moment - I never would have thought the day would come when I’d be upset bout MySpace going down!
Useful links:
- Kings Of Leon website
- Umor Rex website
- Download - Cagey House - Beb Ebullient
- Download - Bonobo feat. Bajka - Nighlite
Electronic Music and The Mainstream
You may, or may not, remember way back when this blog first started, I mentioned that perhaps from time to time I would have guest articles from other people. Well, today is the first of those. This piece was written by my good friend Weeks - he’s a connoisseur of electronic music, and a rabid Aphex Twin fan, but don’t hate him for that, give the article a read…
Electronic Music and The Mainstream - by Weeks.
I’m not so much referring to electronic music that appears in the mainstream, because as far as I’m concerned there isn’t any proper electronic music in the mainstream. Nor am I referring to dance music, as that is concerned with, well, dancing, more than the electronic medium with which it’s created.
So, I’m referring to the likes of; Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Orbital, Autechre, DJ Shadow, Luke Vibert, DJ Food, etc and why these bands and artists are never in the mainstream. I started thinking about this when reading a post in FIZIKZ’s last.fm group about how electronic music is, on the whole, conspicuously missing from rateyourmusic.com’s top 1000.
Obviously, being a huge electronica fan, I am a little biased. But I cannot for the life of me work out how anyone couldn’t appreciate works such as In Sides by Orbital or Endtroducting by DJ Shadow. I’m thankfully aware I’m not a complete freak; I’ve met countless people, on the internet and the “other place”, who also appreciate the same artists as I do. But in no way do these people make up the mainstream. They need to be sought out. They are the sort of people who are normally found plugged into their portable music players with a dreamy and content look on their faces, and sometimes they come together in various drum’n'bass or turntabalism nights that appear about once a month in local nightclubs (sometimes less if you live in the arse-end of nowhere, which I do).
A while back, I read a 2006 predictions article on kuro5hin which predicted electronic music will “come back to fill the void.” That statement asks two questions: Firstly, was it ever here? We had Depeche Mode, but that seems a world away from the complex electronic arrangements of the aforementioned artists. Secondly, will it ever reach a mainstream audience? BBC News once had an article pertaining how a large proportion of the population have difficulty following complex pieces of music - something I experienced when I started to listen to classical music, which ceased after prolonged exposure. If that is true, it begs the question will the populous as a whole ever give electronic music enough of a chance? Will it remain a niche market, along side classical music and jazz, or will it, as the kuro5hin article states, break on through to the other side? Thoughts?
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Interesting thoughts there from Señor Weeks. I personally think there are many factors as to why we never see much electronic music in the mainstream. Firstly there are strict rules on releasing a single in the charts, like; the track cannot be any longer than about 3m20s. Don’t find many BOC, Aphex Twin, or Orbital tracks that are bang on that length, it’s either far shorter or much, much, longer. But mainly, the charts are all about making money and making it quickly. The big-wigs have found tried and tested methods to maximise profits - get a catchy beat/bassline (usually ripped off from a classic song), then get a good looking person to sing some catchy lyrics over the top and have them dance half naked in the video. After that, they just have to make sure it gets played on the tv and radio at least 30 times a day, and hey presto! There’s never much in the charts with artistic integrity. Just my thoughts anyway.
In other news, Tru Thoughts have tickled my fancy. Apparently they have some new releases; The Broken Keys - Gravity, Quantic - An Announcement To Answer, and Alice Russell - Under The Munka Moon II. The Broken Keys is the name for the collaborative project between Nostalgia 77 and Natural Self, this promises to be hella jazzy and is out now. The new LP from Quantic took over 18 months to make and was recorded mostly via a laptop at various locations around the globe, this is meant to demonstrate the next step in the Quantic sound, deeper, and mature like a fine wine. Lastly, Alice Russell is back with Under The Munka Moon II - this is 13 tracks worth of wicked covers, collaborations, and remixes with artists such as; DJ Vadim, Bonobo, Nostalgia 77, Natural Self, and TM Juke. I believe this one is due out shortly. Cant wait to get my grubby little hands on all three. Anyway, I’ll leave you with a track…
Boards of Canada - Happy Cycling
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 29th July.
Don’t forget to leave some comments with regards to Weeks’ article, I know he’ll be very interested to hear other peoples’ views on the topic. If ever you have something you’d like to share, or you’ve recently been to a festival and fancy doing a write-up, give me a shout as I would like to put that sort of stuff up on the blog. Bye for now!
Useful links:
- Rate Your Music website
- Weeks’ last.fm page
- Tru Thoughts website
- Download - Boards of Canada - Happy Cycling
last.fm, Changes and Rivals
Okey dokey, pig ‘n a pokey. So, last.fm has been around for a while now and is widely seen as the original music recommendation and listening statistics website (regardless of name changes and mergers). But I’ve noticed recently a few potential rivals pop up on the scene - so not being one to miss out on a new internet fad or two, I’ve checked some out. In the past we’ve seen sites like Pandora come into existence, but at least with Pandora it was a totally different method and practice to last.fm, but now we’re graced with sites such as MusicStrands and MOG, two sites that are very similar to last.fm.
First off, I must admit that these new sites are purely BETA, so I’ll try not to be too tough on them. MusicStrands, or as it is now known MyStrands, is crap. My biggest gripes would be the bulky software that runs on your computer and the fact that they seem to guess artists’ names from song titles. A good thing about last.fm is you just need to download a plugin for what ever music playing software you use and that is the end of it, you need not ever hear of it again - it just quietly feeds info back to the site in the background. MyStrands has this annoying box hanging about in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen, you can hide it, but it’s still bloody annoying. The artist names issue is totally ridiculous - clearly reading the tags of an mp3 is far too difficult for MyStrands, so unless you are listening to something as mainstream as a Britney Spears track, it just guesses the artist names. See my profile for examples; I’ve never heard of Cosmonauti or Barney Kessel!
Now on to MOG. Fickle as I am, the first thing that appeased my little eye was the design; it’s very funky. A week or so ago I tried to register and it said they weren’t taking registrations and to enter my email address to be noti…blah blah, so I did. By chance I took a look yesterday and anyone could now register, so much for the reminder email. MOG is like a more chunky and bright last.fm - two traits I’m still not entirely sure that I like. I mean I’m all for ‘funky’, afterall that is what caught my eye in the first place, but history tells us that in the long-run simplicity and convenience rules all. As you will see on my profile, there are several sections to a MOG page - a good point here is that the user is able to manoeuvre these ‘widgets’ into what ever order they desire. I took a look around at other peoples’ pages and saw that it did indeed make the most sense to put the blog element in the centre and down the middle. Like MyStrands, you do have to download some software, but the MOG software is far more inconspicuous, plus it actually reports back to the site EXACTLY what you have been listening to.
Like I said initially, both are very much in BETA at the moment, but sadly I cant help but feel like ditching MyStrands already, it’s just so shitty with its clinical design, numerous errors, and most of all it offers me nothing as good as last.fm, let alone any improvements or extras. MOG on the other hand does show promise. MOG strikes me as more of a community based site, than simply a statistics based recommendation site. MOG doesn’t actually publish any figures - it will list the tracks you have recently played, plus your most listened to artists over the last week and month, but nothing further. Instead MOG hopes that you will find like-minded people on the site and recommend music personally. I like that, it’s more like a cross between having a MySpace page, last.fm profile, and a blog. The only down points for MOG are that many people will decide to use just one website of this ilk and wont see the benefits of dropping last.fm for this one - which I can understand. However, if like me, you have bags of time on your hands, then you wont mind running a few different profiles.
I do feel like I’ve given MyStrands a bit of an unjust battering, I can see looking at my page there are features I haven’t even bothered with yet, but the whole getting my artists wrong thing was enough to piss me right off. I hope they can iron that out very shortly, then perhaps I’ll return - but I would like to hear from anyone that has been using MyStrands, maybe you can tell a more positive story? Likewise I’d like to hear from MOG users, see what their thoughts are. Feel free to add me to your friends list on any of those three as well. Oh, also, let me know if you’ve found other websites that offer the same sort of services as these sites, I’ll tear them a new arsehole too… if they’re crap.
Back to last.fm though. So there’s been some changes! Just when I thought that it looked very clean and crisp, they go and ‘chunk’ it all up and get the crayons out. No doubt they’ll be thousands of cries of “it’s shit, I liked it better before”, but that’s what they all said after the last revamp. Give it a month and most of us will hardly remember what it used to look like. Anyway, I think it’s good. Nice touch with the new last.fm player, makes it easier to tag and recommend stuff from your own desktop. The first thing I did was click that little button near the top right-hand corner of my profile screen - it turned it all from red to black, and I think the black looks a bit better. From a “ooh…ahhh” point of view, the album cover and photo displays near tracks recently played, and what-not, look pretty nice, although not entirely necessary, think you should be able to turn that off. Generally speaking though it all looks pretty neat, what do you think?
Let’s end this rant with a song…
Thom Yorke - Skip Divided
>> download <<
This download is a sample of the music only and must be deleted from your computer within 24 hours of downloading. This download link will expire on 22nd July.
Useful links:
Filed under Info, Links, Rant | Comments (15)Tired and Ill :-(
I'm feeling tired and ill today. So no 'proper' blog entry for today, I'm afraid. You can blame the World Cup, if you like. Being here in Australia has meant that the games have been live around midnight, 2am, and 5am. And now I have a bloody cold too. I'm never ill, but it must be cos of the sleep loss. How privileged must you feel? You finish checking 300 other more important sites, then think "ah, I'll see what that div-kid is talking bout today", only to find that instead it is me moaning bout being ill and tired! So I'll ramble a bit before falling into bed…
I probably already know a fair share of the people reading this blog (some how or some way), but I doubt I know you all, so feel free to add me to your MySpace (if you have it)… http://www.myspace.com/ghilla - same goes for last.fm really, feel free to add me to your friends list… http://www.last.fm/user/jeej/.
Oh, just a quick note to say 'thanks'… after this blogs' first month of existence it had received over 2000 unique visitors, which I was pretty pleased about - and to think I was thinking no-one would read it - so, thank you very much for that. 
On a similar note, I do try to mix it up a bit on the blog, seeing as it is updated daily. I try to feature new artists, share news, feature my favourite artists, and also feature some MySpace pages - but if you have any ideas or suggestions for what I should write about, or you have a specific request, just give me a shout.
Anyone at this point still twiddling their thumbs, ummm, I sometimes take photos, check out my gallery here… http://jeej83.deviantart.com/ - here's one of my latest…
And here is one of my most popular shots…
Anyway, enough of my rambling now, time for some kip! Don't worry, I'll get the train back on track tomorrow.
Useful links:
