Dirty South - Let It Go (Original TC Review)

Axtone Records: 2007

(2014 Update:
A little dated, this review, as electro house lingered on for a few years longer before the Swedish House Mafia upped the anthem potential, spurring on the anthem house revival (no, really, stop calling it Big Room, you gits) we're going through now. In fact, I'm surprised I didn't notice it before, but Axwell's remix here has all the hallmarks of the genre, right down to the sort of synth-plucks Rollo used back in the early '90s. Come to think of it, all of their biggest hits - even before becoming the supergroup SHM - relied on that trope. Fuck me, no wonder they were so popular.

Dirty South, then? He finally got around to releasing a proper album this past year, though released on his own Phazed Records print, and only digital at that. What, no one bothered to sign him before? Wasn't he supposed to be a top-tier electro house producer and remixer? He still has some fans, I guess, but has gotten lost in the shuffle now that everyone is making anthem house of this sort.)


IN BRIEF: Here yesterday, gone tomorrow.

Dragan Roganovic broke out of Australian obscurity quite quickly into his career. At first mostly tied to fellow Aussies TV Rock through their collaborations, Dragan soon brought his Dirty South project to the forefront on the strength of a string of high-profile remixes. Before long, he was getting tapped to lend his touch to singles from Fedde le Grand, Roger Sanchez, Tiësto, Kaskade, and David Guetta. Why him in particular? If these names are anything to go by, Dragan is quite chummy with the mainstream side of dance music, and he now is often contacted to provide a Big Electro-House Remix for such folk. Truthfully, when compared to the endless numbers of fart-house producers out there, there isn’t anything terribly unique in Dirty South remixes, but for whatever reason he gets the big singles handed to him and has built a tidy career out of it.

In fact, given that his remix work grabs most of the attention, you’d be forgiven in forgetting Dragan makes his own tunes too. He hasn’t released many, and they certainly don’t command as high a profile, but they are out there. Late last year, upon signing to Swedish house man Axwell’s Axtone label, Dragan released his first solo work in over a year, a simple little number titled Let It Go.

And yes, it is rather simple as far as house music goes; which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but in Dragan’s case, Let It Go is quite run-of-the-mill too. There’s a catchy vocal, a serviceable guitar lick, marginal nu-electro elements, and your requisite main-room build-and-drop structure; mainstream sell-out Bob Sinclar gets by on much the same. Really, the only thing rescuing this Dirty South single from Ministry Of Sound compilation fodder obscurity are the beats, which have decent bounce to them when compared to other typical offerings; unfortunately, it isn’t enough to make this a memorable slice of house music either.

For the remix, Axwell himself gets the duties, and offers little as a result. His go at Let It Go rests somewhere between the main-room structure of the original and rote execution of tech-house simplicity. The beats aren’t as interested, and his hooks are marginal even by Swedish House Mafia standards. Sure, it’ll get the job done on the dancefloor, but praising it for that is like praising a car for getting you to where you’re going: it’s the least that’s expected for a pass.

Frankly, had I gotten the chance to review this back when it first came out, Let It Go would have seemed decent, if not enduring (who’d even be able to recall it a year later, I wonder?). As we move deeper into this year of 2008, however, it just seems tired. A resurgent classic house revival has been upstaging all this electro-house stuff with cool class, funky fun, and soulful vitality, and I can’t help but suspect the trendy nu-electro material Dirty South produces will fall out of favor by year’s end. One can only hope.

GZA/Genius - Legend Of The Liquid Sword

MCA Records: 2002

We're long past the age where most post-millennial Wu-Tang solo albums are met with disappointment. Now, articles crop up of looking back at potential overlooked gems, of which there were a few, let’s be honest. Everyone kept expecting the Clan members to continue their mid-‘90s brilliance, all the while bypassing several solid hip-hop albums in their own right. And poor Gary Grice, did he ever get passed by. Beneath The Surface generated some initial excitement, true, and his work with DJ Muggs on Grandmasters got briefly hyped as well, but his other two albums not so much.

Yet while Pro Tools has recently gained some level of respect, Legend Of The Liquid Swords remains one of GZA’s least talked about albums. For the love of me, I cannot understand why. Did it come out at the wrong time? I’ll grant 2002 was not a good year to be making a lyrically conscious album when the burgeoning hot raps consisted mostly of “WHO! WHAT! WHEN! WHERE!”, but surely anything The Genius had to say should have turned heads.

Oh, I’m sure it did, but as all things Wu related during those times, if it wasn’t on par with the ‘90s material, it just didn’t matter. Legend Of The Liquid Swords is damn good, offering about what you’d expect of an eastcoast lyrical showcase, but the beats are mostly bare with funk and soul loops, allowing GZA the room to tell his tales. Tired in the early 2000s? Perhaps, what with Neptunes and Timbaland taking hip-hop down strange new roads (to say nothing of that Kanye kid Roc-A-Fella had behind the decks). DJ Premier and The RZA may have set a standard the decade prior, but the kids wanted new shit. Unfortunately, shit is what they mostly got in the following years (hiya, Soulja Boy).

Gladly, what may have sounded dated in 2002 comes off vintage all these years later – oh hindsight bias, never will you do me wrong! I honestly don’t think regular Wu-fans cared anyway, as when it comes to a GZA album, it’s always about the lyrics. And I can’t find Mr. Grice at fault on anything. Whether waxing nostalgic about the old days (Auto Bio, Fam that also features RZA and Masta Killa, and Sparring Minds with Inspectah Deck), detailing shady record business activities (Did You Say That, Knock Knock), or displaying wizardry with his words (everything!), GZA offers plenty for that intellectual side of your brain. Even the ‘fun’ track Fame is genius, using celebrity names to tell his story. Sample: “Larry’s Bird flew outta Nicholas’ Cage; Joe Tex messages from Satchel’s Paige; Betty Wrights letters with ink from Sean’s Penn; Infinite bars, you couldn’t tell where the song end; Glenn Close enough to quickly duck the tapes; Richard Gere ripped while he was climbin’ Bill Gates.”

Legend Of The Liquid Swords wouldn’t do much for the Wu-Tang Legacy, but it does sit nicely as a companion piece to GZA’s body of work.

Infected Mushroom - Legend Of The Black Shawarma (Original TC Review)

Perfecto: 2009

(2014 Update:
For a late-period Infected Mushroom album, this has held up surprisingly well. Too much of their work instantly dates, whether it be doing crap nu-metal years after that scene died, or jumping on the brostep bandwagon like everyone else. Since they went for more an industrial sound here, though, it doesn't come off so tired. Something about industrial has allowed the genre to endure far longer than anyone would have believed, and while Infected Mushroom's offerings wouldn't have Trent Reznor quivering anytime soon, it's at least respectable enough takes on the sound. Or maybe I'm just showing '90s bias.

This definitely was an odd time for the group, getting picked up by Oakenfold's Perfecto print while suddenly finding themselves rubbing shoulders with trance-cracker jocks at the top of popularity polls. They've since plummeted and are no longer on Perfecto, so who knows what the future holds for Infected Mushroom. Maybe full-on garage rock?)


IN BRIEF: Back in the right direction.

Someone must have sent Infected Mushroom a memo informing them that nu-metal and that entire ilk was a dead genre, something that grew out of favor when all the teenagers that listened to it earlier this decade came of age. Sure, it’s a shame the group didn’t actually read the damn thing until after Vicious Delicious was released, but at least they have read it now. Their latest album, Legend Of The Black Shawarma, thankfully sees a lack of rap-metal leanings, power ballads, and, most thankfully, Amit Duvdevani hilariously awful attempts at gravel-throated earnest singing (even the mock singing in those Creed Shreds vids on YouTube are better). Oh, there are still problems to be had with this album, but IM have at least abandoned the worst bits of their last one. In the process, they’ve also managed to refine some of the things that did work, and the group comes off far more musically taught than they have in while. In a nutshell, they seem to mostly be done exploring, and are now solely focused on execution.

Cause for celebration, right? Perhaps. If you’ve stuck with them through their last couple albums, it certainly is, and definitely so if you’ve only just recently discovered Infected Mushroom. Of course, you’ll still find an army of IM old-schoolers who’ve written this album off as a continued degradation of the psy trance scene, but Infected Mushroom are quite removed from it at this point. Sure, they still retain a few instances of the music, but this album aims for a different audience than crusty hippies and cyber-trippers. And by ditching much of the teenager angst that permeated Vicious Delicious, it seems they’re after a more mature audience as well.

Or maybe not. The CD opens with a guest acoustic strum by Everlast, suggesting the duo ha

The CD opens with a bit of acoustic strumming that reminds me of Everlast, but quickly turns to chugging metal guitars, faux-funk breaks, a bit of psy wibble, a few wordly trappings, and, um… not much else. Poquito Mas is hardly much of a song, sounding more like a mish-mash of ideas IM are preparing you to hear once the album properly gets underway. Rather pointless, to be honest, even if it’s meant to be an intro.

From there, the album unfolds quite entertainingly. You have catchy EBM tunes like Sa’eed and Smashing The Opponent, blinding buttrock goa with Can’t Stop and Herbert The Pervert (now there’s some effective use of their guitars!), and even a credible ballad with Killing Time (having long-time alt-rock favorite Perry Farrell on vocal duties here certainly helps). Elsewhere, ‘Duvdev’ does carry on with the vocal duties, but his voice is fed through so many effects, it actually helps enhance the tracks.

The only real duff track in the opening half is End Of The Road, which seems to be a woeful attempt on IM’s part to do a ‘minimal’ track - that is, a whole bunch of aimless, tuneless dull beats and sounds, with a couple instances of false-climaxes (here’s the build, but forget about a payoff); it does come correct with a typical psy ending, but the lead up is pure toss.

That’s the first half done. The second half of Legend Of The Black Sha-Na-Na sees IM get their concept on; in other words, having satisfied the masses with catchy tunes, Erez and Amit are now ready to get prog rock/metal on our asses. In terms of ambition, the triple-dose of Project 100, Franks, and Slowly can’t be faulted, as there’s quite a bit going on between these three tracks; however, as a listening experience, it wanders aimlessly too much.

Changes in tone, abrupt shifts in time signature, overcooked effects, and just plain dull stretches dilute the great moments to be had. For instance, there’s an excellent burst of strong harmonizing between the psy effects and chugging guitars at the climax of Project 100, but the song needlessly carries on afterwards with dull faux-funk. Meanwhile, Franks and Slowly wander all over the place more so than Israeli psy often does, never seeming to come together as a solid musical outing. If you skip through a track by a few minutes at any given point, it sounds like you’re listening to an entirely different song, and trust me there isn’t much to bridge these disparate sections in a convincing fashion. Any island of quality is thusly lost in a sea of mediocre wibble. For every winning wailing guitar peak, there’s a pointless dinky bloop-bloop bit elsewhere (I’m looking at you, Slowly).

The trouble is then multiplied by just how plastic it all sounds. Granted, Infected Mushroom have long had that aesthetic about them, but it served them well when they were dishing out typical full-on psy (or, in the case of Legend Of The Black Shamwow ’s first half, EBM). In attempting complex prog structures, however, they’re shooting for bold musical statements that can’t be done justice with the hollow sonics they use.

After all that, it makes the titular track a welcome, fun return to the material that worked in the first half of Legend Of The Black Shangri-La. As much as it may infuriate long-time IM fans, the duo seems to have found a comfortable niche in being more of an EBM group than a psy-trance one - they definitely show more aptitude for writing such music than they do in overly-ambitious prog. (by the way, the remix of Riders On The Storm is a love-it/leave-it affair; it’s serviceable, though hardly surprising if you’re at all familiar with IM’s sound)

Legend Of The Black Shawarma is not without its faults, but it is a step in the right direction again. Even if the album is split between catchy cuts and overcooked ambition, the gulf between the two isn’t nearly as pronounced as the split between full-on psy and rap-metal was on Vicious Delicious. You may want to give this a few listens over before making a firm purchasing decision, but it remains one of Infected Mushroom’s better albums in some time.

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Legend

Tuff Gong: 1984

Speaking of reggae...

This is where that Peter Tosh fella' below got his start, even penning some of The Wailers' most memorable hits (Get Up, Stand Up, One Foundation) - I'm sure he also influenced many other political songs from the group that became reggae staples for years to come. But yes, the main star of the enterprise was Robert Nesta Marley, or simply Bob to white stoners the world over.

I guess the importance of this collective of reggae musicians cannot be overstated. There were other names and bands that had a greater hand in developing the sound, true, but none came within an earshot of breaking into American radio. Then all of a sudden, folks picked up on these quirky, rugged roots rhythms emanating from Jamaica, almost exclusively from a practically all-star cast calling themselves The Wailers, fronted by an incredibly magnetic singer with crazy dreadlocks. Why is he even wearing his hair like that? Because he's a Rastafarian? What's that? Goodness, what else is going on in Jamaica? It all sounds so, like, laid-back and fun, man. They also like smokin' grass too. Oh man, I'm totally gonna be Jamaican now, it's kinda like being a hippie, right?

So I don't know if that's really what '60s burnouts thought of reggae music, but seeing how it's affected the hippie culture since, it wouldn't surprise me. Kind of a moot point though, as one doesn’t have to be of the crusty persuasion to enjoy Bob Marley; hence his broad appeal. The knack for a hook, the charming melodies and vocalizations, the poignant messages, and, perhaps key, the comprehensible lyrics (ain’t no thick Jamaican accents here, my friends), they were the total package for global domination. Sadly, after a brilliant decade of music, Marley died of cancer at the start of the ‘80s. And while The Wailers still tour performing all their classic jams (woot, I even saw them at a nearby folk festival), they ceased writing new tunes.

Obviously, a greatest hits package followed, arriving in ’84 as Legend. It’s been the definitive Bob Marley & The Wailers collection ever since, seeing countless re-issues, re-masterings, and remix supplements. Every tune you know of the group is here - Buffalo Soldier, Jamming, Stir It Up, I Shot The Sheriff, etc. – though depending on the version you find, not always in its best iteration. For instance, the first runs of Legend featured a live recording of No Woman No Cry, which for my money is the best way to hear the tune (obviously, since I paid for it). Its seven minutes long, so plenty of extended jams go down, but for some stupid reason, it’s been excised from newer copies of the CD in favour of an edited cut. Poor form, made even worse by the same thing happening to my all-time favourite Marley tune, Exodus. Dammit, I don’t care if it’s remastered, you don’t edit that dubby masterpiece! Be wary of such shenanigans if you get Legend for yourself.

Peter Tosh - Legalize It

Columbia: 1976

An album you’re supposed to have, if you’ve ever been a pothead. You didn’t even have to smoke much, but having Legalize It in your collection signified support of legislation de-criminalizing the wacky-tabacky; or maybe you just needed a familiar, un-ironic record cover to roll your joints on. And yeah, I definitely was something of a ganja indulger when I picked up Peter Tosh’s debut solo album, but it was because I enjoy those vintage roots reggae jams, I swear!

Several others must have too, as Legalize It has gone down as a reggae classic, and seen several re-issues, remasterings, and remixes this past decade (though not as much as his old bandmate, Bob Marley). Heck, some have even gone so far as to give the album a super SACD upgrade, including full-on 5.1 Surround! As the cheap-ass cover to the left shows, I don’t have such a copy in my possession. I found it in a bargain bin, though as this is Columbia, it wouldn’t surprise me if it was one of those Columbia House options you got in the early ‘90s. It’s also about as tinny as a cheap CD transfer can be, which was about the extent I was willing to splurge on a marijuana protest album, even when I was taking tokes on a semi-regular basis.

Actually, title track aside, Legalize It isn’t much about drugs at all. As was a common theme with Mr. Tosh’s work (and for which he got in trouble with authorities for), protests against injustice and poverty is the name of the game …sometimes. He didn’t get really opinionated until his follow-up albums, but opts for a mix of tunes here. So we get the political stuff in Legalize It, Burial (lambasting gangsters and corrupt officials for never attending funerals of the poor …I think) and What’cha Gonna Do? (about a woman who’s family is being ruined by police and ticky-tacky arrests …I’m pretty sure). Following those, there’s tunes about how awesome Jah is (Igziabeher), pleasant love ditties (No Sympathy and Ketchy Shuby …maybe), and broken relationships (Til Your Well Runs Dry). Okay, I have to admit, I had to do some research online about these lyrics, because like all Jamaican music, their gloriously daft version of English can confound even a fifth level linguist expert (he even understands Scottish!).

Let’s face it though: the real reason to check out this album is for those lovely reggae jams. If your only exposure to the genre is Bob Marley or Sly & Robbie, you’ve missed out on what the genre has to offer, as their tunes were often wonderfully studio crafted works. Tosh, on the other hand, comes off more ramshackle and live – which really, is the best way to hear roots music. There’s something entrancing when hearing various instruments seemingly out of sync with each other, yet somehow maintains rhythmic consistency through it all. It’s, like, getting high, or something.

Leftfield - Leftism

Columbia: 1995

These ‘definitive electronica albums’ often weigh me down. Not for a lack of things to say, oh no – if anything, there’s too much to say, though undoubtedly covered far more extensively than I’d ever manage within self-imposed word count. Trouble arises when you know the narrative, understand the impact, and appreciate the execution, yet can’t always muster the spark that wins you over as it has so many others. I like Leftfield. I like Leftism. I like progressive house – whatever it was supposed to be even back in the day – and have nary an ill thought when it comes to this album. It’s also one of my least played LPs of those seminal mid-‘90s “supposed to have” electronic music releases. In fact, it took me years to finally get around to grabbing a copy, more as a sense of completist obligation rather than any urge to hear Open Up or even Inspection (Check One) again.

Part of the problem is Leftism’s very nature, an attempt at bringing their trend-setting sound into the mainstream consciousness. Not an entirely daft idea, and when Columbia signed Leftfield, I’m sure they figured they’d have similar success as Virgin did with all those other ‘rave’ groups (The Future Sound Of London, The Chemical Brothers, The Massive Attack, etc.). And they were right, Leftism getting sales, plaudits, and all that good stuff. Unlike those acts, however, something feels lost in Leftfield’s transition from underground taste-makers to crossover stars.

Perfect example is the new version of their first hit Song Of Life. The original was a prog-house staple, establishing all the chugging rhythms, clever samples, and dream-like qualities that defined the early scene. On Leftism, however, it opts for the chill road instead, nearly half the track devoted to a revamping of the Song Of Life b-side, Fanfare Of Life. Great sounding cut, of course, but clearly aimed at the home-listening demographic, as is much the album.

Right, Leftfield couldn’t simply release their old club hits in ’95 as they first appeared earlier that decade – the musical innovation arms race was blindingly fast at that time, and grooving, dubby house tunes were already coming off dated. To keep pace, Barnes and Daley dipped their hands in other genres. Techno crops up in Black Flute, Space Shanty, and Afro-Left (though again, the album version pales compared to the pounding Afro Ride cut on the single), breaks get their nod in Storm 3000, trip-hop finds its way care of Original, and chill-out has its moments with Melt and 21st Century Poem; all of which mixed through Leftfield’s trademark bottem-heavy, dubby soundscapes.

Does this sound like too much market-driven genre hopping? Congratulations then, you’ve discovered Leftism’s primary problem. Whether the duo believed they could pull off an ‘all-encompassing’ dance album, or it was mandated by overhead to cover every potential market, I haven’t a clue, but the result is a good sounding LP lacking, erm, progressive electronic music adventurism. We can’t scare away those potential Oasis fans, after all.

Solar Fields - Leaving Home

Ultimae Records: 2005/2008

It’s hard to imagine a guy like Solar Fields having a ‘forgotten album’, but that’s honestly what Leaving Home comes off like. There's a transitional feeling to his third LP on Ultimae, an attempt to move on from the psy dub that made Blue Moon Station such a standout, but not quite reaching the musical diversity and epic scope later albums offered. One of Mr. Birgersson's enduring strengths is his willingness to try something different every time he releases an album, but I don't think he quite knew where he wanted to go next on Leaving Home, resulting in something of a hodgepodge CD.

Case in point: the track list, or rather the track 'demarcation'. The first half of this album is indexed in such a bizarre manner, I have to imagine ol' Magnus deliberately aiming for avant-garde. First tune Home is barely a tune at all, serving more as soundscape lead-in for summery chill-out second cut Time Slide. Fair enough, many albums start this way, but the two blends so seamlessly together, you'd think it was the same track. Insum does more to stand out as something distinct, though noodles about for nearly half the track before establishing a proper melodic theme (a lovely bit of lazy ambient techno featuring strumming strings and sweeping synths ...standard Ultimae at this point, if I'm honest). Couldn't the first half just been an independently indexed interlude?

Following that, we get Star Fruit, Magnetosphere (Star Fruit Part 2), and Stereo Hypnosis (Magnetosphere Part 2). Oh cool, a running theme between three tracks, this should be- what, it's over already? Yep, three individual 'tracks', running a total time less than Insum. What was the point of that? Sure, the drum programming grows more complicated with each track (Star Fruit Part 3 almost enters braindance territory), but couldn't this have been one single track instead? The first two parts are simply too short to have much interest as stand-alones.

Following that, we’re treated to three tracks breaking the ten-minute mark – heck, Monogram breaks the fifteen-minute mark, mostly noodly ambient techno but fine for that sort of thing. The first of this bunch though, Air Song, has three totally different ideas during its run-time, yet isn’t split up like the Star-Fruit-Magnetosphere-Hypnosis sequence that preceded it. It doesn’t ruin the listening experience, mind you – I doubt Solar Fields could release a bad album if he tried – but boy does it make for a wonky looking tracklist.

Right, I haven’t been detailing much of the music itself, mainly because there isn’t much to talk about. Leaving Home has a soft atmosphere running through, chill even for typical Solar Fields chill (and if you aren’t familiar with his sound yet, what are you waiting for!?). Fortunately, it ends strong, with Times Are Good coming off like a Pete Namlook tribute, and the titular final cut featuring a great climax of wordly sounds, synths, and trip-hop breaks. It can be something of an ambient-soup slog to get there though.

Perfect Stranger - Learning = Change (2013 Update)

Iboga Records: 2006

(Click here to wander the barren wastes of my old writing.)

*blink* ...*blink-blink*

Sorry about that. My eyes dried out while trying to read that old review of mine. I still couldn't get through it. In fact, just thinking about it has left my creative process a desolate desert. I'm utterly stumped on what to say in this Update. It's still a good prog-psy album, far better than most of the material Iboga Records churned out in later years. What kind of material? Ah, you don't want me to tell you, it's really not interesting. I'm going to though, aren't I, just to burn some word count here.

Iboga was making a name for itself in the mid-'00s as a worthy contributor to a growing prog-psy scene, their finest offerings easily on par with the likes of Spiral Trax. Then, for some totally daft reason, the Iboga roster started getting bit by the minimal bug. Their tunes often had a deeper, tribal tone to them, sandwiched between the driving, melodic numbers, but not any longer. Perfect Stranger, Iboga's main man remember, was particularly smitten by this trend, churning out some of the driest tracks you could imagine. I don't know if they ever recovered from that nonsense, as I lost touch with the label as this decade took form. Didn't want to bother springing for music if it was gonna' be the listening equivalent of traversing the Gobi Desert.

I did have a chance to see if Perfect Stranger had changed his sound this summer, as he was one of the headliners at the Shambhala Music Festival. Unfortunately, he was slotted for a ridiculously early time at the psytrance-worldbeat-hippieshit stage, at which point I was slotted to work on the clean-up crew as part of my volunteer duties. Yeah, after six years attending this festival, I gave back to that which gave so much to me – the early-entry, gettin' fed, warm showers, and cool co-workers was a good incentive too. That Friday evening shift, I rode around on the trash collection truck; dirty work true, but a lot of fun too, hopping on a moving vehicle chanting “Trash! Trash! Trash!” along the way, dancing to music whenever we neared one of the stages. It was one, big, moving party, keeping the grounds tidy and that.

Still, my fondest memory of that trip didn't occur at the festival, but the night before my travelling posse got there. We stayed overnight in a small town called Trail, famous for a massive steel mill in the centre. We thought maybe a pub might be open late, but as it was a holiday night, Trail's downtown was dead, not a soul on the street, and a disconcerting sight for us city goers. Meanwhile, looming in the background of this abandoned area lay the massive factory, its evening lights eerily illuminating massive smoke stacks billowing thick clouds into the warm summer night. A real steampunk sight for this day in age.

What? Oh hey, Learning = Change. Still worth a listen, it is. Trust.

Enigma - Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!

Virgin: 1996

Enigma had beaten the sophomore slump on The Cross Of Changes, thanks in large part to songs you couldn't escape anywhere you went. In fact, I suspect it may have been overkill on the casual listener's part, as by the mid-'90s, interest in world-beat pop had significantly dwindled. What, another ethnic chant coupled with Shakuhachi flutes and dated breakbeats? Fah, who's got time for that when 'girl with acoustic guitar' is all the hotness now (then). Michael Cretu, crafty producer he is, also recognized the need to keep his project evolving. Thus his third album, Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!, was promoted as a marriage of his two previous Enigma works. Hey, now I get that title! It's, like, proclaiming old Enigma is dead, but here's new Enigma to lead the way. Deep, man.

Unfortunately, the album itself failed to generate much buzz beyond the lead single Beyond The Invisible, itself memorable mostly for the odd video. I mean, really, what’s going on here: Lola be running to the woods, where a figure-skating competition is being judged by steampunk cenobites (those oddballs on the cover) while tree sprites watch. It’s actually not a bad tune, though clearly a step below such hits as Age Of Loneliness and Sadeness, Part 1 - T.N.T. For The Brain comes close though. I guess if you’ve never cared about Cretu’s vocals, it wouldn’t grab you either. Tough beans if that’s the case, as he sings quite a bit for this album.

In fact, the more there are vocals on Le Roi Is Morty, Live The King!, the less interesting the album is. I appreciate the effort Mr. Cretu puts into his singing, as you can tell he’s giving his limited range all that he can offer (with a little studio boost too), but the tracks he leads on have almost always been the weakest cuts on his albums. His wife, Sandra, adds so much scintillating depth to admittedly daft New Age lyrics, and it’s a shame she doesn’t get more to do this time out.

Musically, The King Is Dead; Oops, He’s A Zombie! is softer than the previous two. Morphing Thru Time lazily coasts, Shadows In Silence floats on tranquil oceans, Almost Full Moon blissfully rocks back and forth in a dreamy daze, and Prism Of Life... well, would likely go good around a campfire. Even the upbeat tunes aren’t as driving in their rhythms as older Enigma, The Roundabout about the closest thing coming to a proper club cut.

LREM,VLR! is a better album than most gave it credit for back in the day, but has the feeling of an ambitious theme that never quite gels. Some trimming of the sappier moments like Why!... (oh God, Cretu just can’t sing here) and The Child In Us (oof, what platitudes) would have helped. If anything, the instrumentals are gorgeous, and worth checking the album out if you’ve been a fence sitter for all this time.

Neil Young - Le Noise

Reprise Records: 2010

It was about the mid-'aughts that I caught the Rusty bug, but even as ol' Neil continued releasing albums of new material at a good clip that decade, I didn't pay his post-millennial output much heed. I had nearly four prior decades of Young's discography to catch up on, and while press for the likes of Living With War or Chrome Dreams II was positive, I saw little point in catching such albums. They were good, so said the journals, but not going anywhere his classic material hadn't been before. Thus I figured I'd stumble along to Young's 2000s music long after the fact.

Then I heard the early promos for Le Noise. Say, this is different. I’d heard him as a solo guitarist plenty of times, but never with an emphasis on fuzzed-out distortion. Also, what’s with these songs about aged reflection? It’s almost as though his head was in an autobiographical mindset when he wrote them. And hey, Daniel Lanois is the producer? Holy cow, Neil ain’t never get professional producers on his work, always preferring the ragged, first-take approach guys like David Briggs provided. How would a guy known for spacious, perfected studio mixdowns mesh with a rocker known for almost the exact opposite?

Truth be told, Neil Young’s something of a music perfectionist himself, always aiming to capture the spark of his creativity as close to the source as he can. Couple that with an almost insatiable pursuit of discovering the highest-fidelity medium out there (he got no love for MP3s), and pairing up with Lanois isn’t quite so surprising. “Give me space for the music to breathe,” said Neil, “and you can use fancy studio gadgets to take it further.” Sounds good to me, as does Le Noise.

Instead of recording in a traditional studio, they set up a make-shift one at Lanois’ Los Angeles mansion, resulting in a fuller sound as Neil’s guitar tones filled large rooms. Also unique to the project was splitting the guitar into two amps, one for rhythm and one for lead, creating audio separation of the two. As Mr. Young’s never been the most technically proficient guitarist around though, flubbed chords are a consequence of simultaneously playing lead and rhythm. Still, as any longtime Rusty will attest, that’s always been part of his charm. As for Lanois’ production, it remains in the background while Neil sings about relationships (of course), global problems (damn hippie), and his sordid drug history (ooh, tantalizing!). When songs go pure instrumental, however, or during a coda, dubby effects emerge, lending Le Noise to something of a shoegaze feeling, though with a producer doing the sonic manipulation rather than the musician with footpedals.

This album received a ton of accolades when it came out, though I figure more for the concept than the actual content since most songs are typical Neil Young: simple. It’s definitely one of his most unique sounding albums though, and a must-have for anyone willing to take the Rusty plunge.