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One of both the great joys and the great frustrations of working in the arts, any of the arts, is that sometimes you get an idea, but you can’t tell at first whether it’s a good idea or a bad idea. A lot of the time, you have to spend some real effort developing it before its goodness or badness becomes evident.
Which is sort of a roundabout way of saying that I don’t really blame Joe Sierra for the fact that Vicious Love really isn’t that great. Sierra isn’t a singer — he’s incredibly prolific, but most of his work is techno or instrumental trance — and so for this record, rather than hire a vocalist, he simply programmed one. All of the “vocals” on the album are in fact created by a computer program called Vocaloid, which creates pitched vocals based on a template created by a real-life singer. It’s mostly been used in J-Pop; other English-language artists, including Mike Oldfield of Tubular Bells fame, have used this software in spots before, but this is the first time I’ve seen anyone try to make and sell a full-length in English using it for all the vocals before (though I could have missed someone). That’s the idea.
Problem is, in practice, it doesn’t end up being a good idea. The computer-vox sound like the spirit of a rather bored Madonna possessing a Speak & Spell: not only the timbre, but even the timing is off, and the lyrics are often difficult to make out. It’s an effect that certainly fails to sound like an actual singer, and while I can imagine it being manipulated to sound “futuristic” in a sub-Computer World-era-Kraftwerkian way, or “disturbing” in a manner that would make Gary Numan proud, it doesn’t do either, mostly because of the lazy, elevator-trance backing. I half expected the computer to burst into a rousing chorus of “the next available service representative will assist you” — which probably would have improved my opinion of the album. The tracks all blend into each other; “What You Know,” which has slightly more aggressive programming, is probably the highlight by default, but that’s not exactly a rousing endorsement.
It was probably worth it for Sierra to take a shot at making this album, but it’s not really worth it for you to hear it, unfortunately. With luck, Sierra will already have moved on to the next idea — which, let’s hope, turns out to be a better one.
Label: Self-released
Release date: 2008
Rating: 4/10 (includes a +1 bonus for trying the concept)
Ever since I first realized who the “Echo” in Echo & The Bunnymen was, I’ve had a soft spot in my heart for bands that credit their machines as full members. So I’m predisposed to like Looptron from the get-go, simply because the otherwise solo Neil Sharkey insists on crediting his laptop prominently in all of his press materials. He’d get double points if he gave it a name, but Looptron is still a pretty new project, so maybe there’s still time.
The cyborg duo’s first release, Obsolete Before You Start, is five tracks of fizzy synths, gleefully computerized drums, and intermittent bursts of heavily-processed guitar. The sound, which is pitched somewhere in between Dntel and Ultra-era Depeche Mode, works to best effect on the swirling “Play My Guitar” and the vocoder-happy title track. It’s not the sound of someone playing to their influences; it’s the sound of someone who knows what he likes and is going to make quite sure he has a good time doing it. Actually, it makes me feel a lot more cheerful than most electronic music, which I think has less to do with the subject matter or the chord progressions and more to do with the fact that it sounds like Sharkey enjoys what he’s playing and isn’t just trying to make it big enough to get a plug from Pitchfork or his picture taken with Kraftwerk. Or maybe the Kraftwerk mannequins.
Anyway, you can buy this EP from CDbaby or iTunes, and I’d rather recommend that you do. “Whore” is sort of middling, but the other four tracks are very nice, and if we all hurry up and buy a copy, maybe Sharkey and his as-yet-unnamed electronic partner will return the favor and drop a full-length soon.
Release date: Jan. 26, 2008
Label: Self-released
So, I think 2008’s off to a pretty good start musically. And one of the new acts that I can’t help feeling excited about is Looptron, a.k.a. Neil Sharkey, a laptop-with-guitars musician who’s just released his first EP. (Review forthcoming, as soon as it shows up in my mailbox.)
But in the meantime, please enjoy this super-brand-new track that’s now available for free download via Looptron’s website. It features vocals from Vicar’s Daughter (Sarah Rogers), the singer from London-based electro-soul outfit Moeker. I’m really liking this song so far, and I’m very much looking forward to listening to the full EP.
Looptron vs. Vicar’s Daughter — “Circus”
I don’t have anything to say about Camille Saint-Saëns that seems worthy of this venue, so I may be putting my writing-about-my-listening-project on hold for a while.
Instead, I give you this, courtesy of the miracle of modern technology, which gives us robots, hydroplanes, carbon-composite tennis rackets, and obscure Kylie Minogue TV clips. You’ll have to tell me if you agree, but I think it may be the single most awkward artist/audience mismatch I’ve ever seen, and that includes the time I saw a crowd watch Eisley (who I was there to see, let it be known) go on stage immediately before Reggie and the Full Effect and New Found Glory.
And yes, maybe she deserves it for lip-synching that obviously, but then again I’m not sure these guys would be worth the effort of actually singing for.
I’m quite ill, and so I may not be writing too much for a bit. But, as I sit here in a semi-comatose stupor, you know what’s disappointing to me? No, not that when I stand up, it feels like an army of jackrabbits are hitting me in the shoulders. It’s that people in English-speaking countries (or at least the two I’ve lived in, the US and Canada — Alberta, so I won’t pretend to speak for Quebec) don’t seem to like trying foreign-language music (unless it’s “The Macarena”). Because if they did, Belanova would maybe be more popular. And then, as I shimmied around my car/bedroom/office with the glass window to the smoother-than-butter-or-Duran Duran synthpop, I would perhaps like the radio better.
Their 2007 album, Fantasia Pop made my best of the year list, and I’d strongly recommend it if you like synth-based pop music at all. I do. But you probably guessed that already.
Something that I find completely inexplicable is the “World Music” section at most CD stores.
Usually, it’s like fifty different copies of The Old Guys Hawaiian Guitar Ensemble Plays Seventy Minutes’ Worth of “Mele Kalikimaka”, some really old pan-flute albums, and maybe if you’re lucky a Putumayo sampler or two. Never, in even one of the dozens, possibly hundreds of record stores I’ve been in over the years, has it had even one Annbjørg Lien album, which is why I had to buy all three of her albums that I have (Felefeber, Baba Yaga, and Aliens Alive) online, after a friend of mine accidentally discovered one of her CDs in the public library.
This is frustrating to me, because Lien is sort of like the Jimi Hendrix of the Hardanger fiddle, if Hendrix set fewer instruments on fire, and instead made soft, emotional fireside music with a lot of drones. I’ve listened to a lot of “Nordic Contemporary” or whatever you want to call it, and Lien’s work is easily the best and, in its quiet way, most virtuosic, that I’ve heard. Heck, Felefeber made my top 10 albums list back in 2006. I’m sure she’s less obscure in Norway, but she certainly ought to be as famous stateside as, say, Yanni. I’m positive she could put on a better PBS special than him. And she’d look less like Captain Hook.
Note: Day 5 was Annbjørg Lien to Anton Bruckner
