Werk Discs: 2008
(2017 Update:
Screw '92. Where were you
in 2008, when this came out, eh? Or maybe 2001, the same sixteen year gap as Zomby had between album and era-homage. Yeah, there's a sobering thought, I reckon. Does that mean we're due for some nostalgic throwbacks to vintage electroclash? Like, I can't think of much else from that year you could claim as 'cutting edge' and distinctly of that time, but with almost no follow-up in its wake as it splintered into competing scenes. Genres generally get comfortable and cozy these days, laying fat as time wears on. Or completely fizzling out as trend-jumping 'flash-in-pans'. I'm looking at you, whatever that 'minimal-prog' thing Border Community did.
Zomby's maintained a decent career for himself nearly a decade on, still releasing the occasional album that's just as intriguing as it is frustrating to play as this one. Seriously, does this guy have major ADHD, what with all the short snippets of tracks his LPs are littered with? Crazy that he ended up on 4AD for a time, though recently found his way back to his more natural setting of Hyperdub. Oh, and I think he's somehow remained incognito. Lord Discogs doesn't even list a proper name, much less any photos without some cover. That's serious dedication to the act, but hey, if the mighty UR could do it, so can Zomby.)
IN BRIEF: Too much old, not enough school.
We’ve certainly never hid our fondness for classic rave sounds of the early 90s here at TranceCritic. I’m sure it’s gotten to the point where readers figure we’ll give anything a glowing remark so long as it has a rolling piano, wailing diva sample, giddy breakbeat, or big-synth riff. Let’s be honest though (as if we ever aren’t): it isn’t enough to just make use of these bits and pieces – there needs to be a degree of intuitive musicianship involved too. It might have been a unique twist on the style, or a perfectly executed production, or perhaps a ‘special-something’ that captured the free-wheeling spirit of that time; whatever it was, the old-school classics have endured for these reasons, leaving plenty of forgettable tunes to the dustbin of history. And truth be told, there was quite a bit deservedly left behind.
While singles were awesome, many of the albums from that era were forgettable. Seriously, beyond the big ones, can you remember many old school albums? And even then, can you remember how every track went? The trouble was not many producers seemed capable of making full-lengths; for every
Experience, you’d get about ten
Movements. Albums generally consisted of an intro track, your big singles, a couple variations on that single, the ‘leftfield’ contribution, an ‘other-genre’ filler track or two, and remixes of the big singles – in that order. There was a lot of repetitiveness in old school albums, and in making a deliberate throw-back to the year 1992, Zomby has either accidentally or intentionally fallen into this trap.
First, of course, is who even this Zomby guy is. Well, good luck finding that one out. He remains anonymous, a characteristic worth its weight in gold where London’s dubstep scene is concerned. Still, some have him pegged as the next Burial, a dubious distinction I’m sure he’d prefer not to have given his utter disregard for following convention. This here debut album is a prime example: instead of building upon his promising early dubsteb and chip-tune singles, as many were expecting, he goes and makes a rave album.
Fair enough, plenty of producers are doing this lately, sometimes with brilliant results. If you’re going this route, though, there needs to be a good spin on the formula, otherwise we may as well just replay the classics.
It starts promisingly enough (oh, but how often albums “starts promisingly,” eh?), with
Fuck Mixing, Let’s Dance hitting all the right nostalgia nerves, including sped-up vocals, quick punchy riffs, and bouncy beats. It’s an intro track though, setting the tone of the album before we’re lead into what would be the ‘big single’,
Euphoria. Sounding like some long lost proto-jungle track even Grooverider inexplicably missed, it’s got a great shuffling breakbeat, many little tidbits culled from hardcore of yore (klaxon wails, vocal samples, catchy riffs), and a dubstep wobble bassline bringing it in the here-and-now. If none of this sounds appealing to you, however, then you’d better forget this album, as Zomby basically uses the elements from
Euphoria and continuously recycles them throughout. And this is where the problems start.
For instance, do you love klaxon wails? I mean,
really love ‘em? No, I mean
really fucking love ‘em? Because you’re gonna hear ‘em… a lot. Also, did you love that shuffling breakbeat in
Euphoria? No, I mean
really… you get the point. Nearly every track on
Where Were U sounds like a remix of
Euphoria, just with a different ‘old school’ idea thrown on top of it.
Tears In The Rain sludges things up with a wobble bass that drones more than wobbles, and makes use of the ‘rip speech from sci-fi movie’ cliché (the title alone should tell you which speech it is).
Get Sorted through
Float is pretty much one idea spread out, taking the klaxons and shuffle beats and mixing it up with Bizarre Inc.’s classic
Playing With Knives. And the titular track is basically a megamix of all the album’s bits and pieces, flowing into a kind of mish-mash of it all with Baby D’s
Let Me Be Your Fantasy and Street Fighter II samples (“Sonic boom!”). That’s a fair amount of
Where Were U’s playing time taken up by rehashing a couple ideas and spreading it out, which, as mentioned, is par for the course where many old school albums were concerned.
Since Zomby doesn’t stray from the formula much, it’s always a welcome relief when he actually does, even if the results aren’t always memorable.
Daft Punk Rave is little more than an interlude making use of the French duo’s
Technologic dialogue over a beat;
Need Ur Lovin’,
Hench, and
B With Me are the kind of ‘other-genre’ filler tracks you might find mired in a ‘92 compilation dedicated to those sounds (deep house, hardcore, and breakbeat, respectively) – I have to mention, however, that the klaxons sound pretty good in
Need Ur Lovin’, as Zomby decides to funk them up a little.
As for the ‘leftfield’ track, Zomby has taken modern-day crunk man Gucci Mane’s
Pillz, thrown in a bunch of chip-tune bleeps, and sped the pace up to proper amphetamine levels. It’s quite nutty, but in being so radically different from everything else on
Where Were U, the track definitely leaps out. All the while, though, it sounds like something that could have been produced back in ’92, probably during one of Richard D. James’ ‘inspired’ moments.
Ultimately, Zomby’s debut comes off like a good ’92 pirate radio session someone recorded to tape - even the general sound quality has a kind of ‘aged’ feeling to it. This would have made for a nifty release then, had it been heard back in ’92. At this point, however,
Where Were U is more like a quirky artifact that you may throw on occasionally, but has little that differentiates itself from the source material it draws influence from. His unfortunate insistence on recycling so many of the same sounds, riffs, and drum patterns throughout (old and new) severely dulls the listening experience. Of course, the counter here is that a throwback such as this isn’t meant to be critiqued by modern standards, that it’s a celebration of the good ol’ days if raving. Fine and dandy, but if that means hearing a bunch of sounds that can be found on any old school compilation, we may as well stick with the classics. In pilfering so much from the past, it certainly seems Zomby has.
Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com, 2009. © All rights reserved.
