If you listen to only one album this week, make it ‘Versus’ by Various Production. Tasty remixes of the Sugarbabes and Ian Brown sit next to more adventurous material. Just dig those beats!
Various Production are arguably the hottest UK production team at the moment. ‘Versus’ is a collection of some of their recent mixes plus their own material as re-mixed by up and coming talent like Rusty and Zomby. What you get for your money are strange beats, massive bass and razorsharp edits.
Primal Scream disappointed big time this week with ‘Beautiful Future’, their 9th studio album in 20-odd years. Too much talking about revolution, not enough fire in the music. Brazilian band Cansei Ser Sexy, or CSS for short, didn’t convince either with their move away from dancey electronics to a more rock based band sound. Meanwhile, Carla Bruni, the wife of French president Nicolas Sarkozy, released her 3rd solo album full of not very exciting mainstream pop.
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Messing With Your Head: Various Production ‘Versus’
Various Production don’t do conventional four-to-the-floor beats. In fact, there’s little that’s conventional in a typical VP mix. They even stick out as a bit extreme in a genre that’s based on tricky rhythms, like Dubstep. The Sugarbabes’ ‘Too Lost In You’ is probably a good starting point. A subtle rework that pulls the carpet from under your feet just as you are making your way to the dancefloor. Ouch.
Working with Ian Brown’s ‘Sister Rose’, VP add massive bass that towers over Brown’s vocals, casting the song into dark, moody shadows. But if you really want to see how the Dubstep approach can add drama to an indie rock tune, check out the VP mix of Foal’s ‘Red Sox’.
My favourite VP compositions on the album are the chanson bizzarre of ‘Limbs’ and the massive re-rubs of ‘Hater’ and ‘In This’. Zomby turns ‘Hater’ into an 8-bit dancehall bomb that sounds like you are on a bumper car joyride through a games arcade. Rusty gives ‘In This’ an equally strong remake, throwing the tune into a quaking, skittering mess of glitchy madness.
Listen Here to ‘Versus’ and download the album from iTunes.
The Band That Wants To Be Blondie: CSS ‘Donkey’
CSS don’t bop like on ‘Let’s Make Love’ anymore. The trashy electronics are gone. Instead, they try to sound like a ‘proper’ band, succedding in sounding a bit like Blondie circa ‘X-Offender’.
My favourites are ‘Rat Is Dead (Rage)’, ‘I Fly’, ‘Give Up’ and the pop reggae of ‘Move’. Bubblegum pop with a punky attitude.
On the rest of the album, CSS don’t seem too comfortable with the new band thing. Songs start full of attitude only to fall flat on their backside. Take ‘How I Became Paranoid’ for instance, starts off all Clash-y with a fat ‘London Calling’ style guitar riff only to fizzle out in a Euro Disco rhythm.
Gone is the exuberant confidence of the previous album ‘Cansei De Ser Sexy’. With the vocals somewhat flattened and a generally much more glossy production, much of ‘Donkey’ sounds lukewarm. It’s a decent enough album but I just can’t get excited about it.
Listen Here to ‘Donkey’ and download the album from iTunes.
Too Much Talkin’ About The Revolution: Primal Scream ‘Beautiful Future’
‘Beautiful Future’ sounds like Primal Scream went into the studio to re-make ‘Get Your Rocks Off’, the song that established the band’s 1970s-style rock debauchery phase in 1994. Closely modeled on the Rolling Stones, they pulled it off back then with a horn section, backing singers and all the trimmings. This time, there’s little evidence of rock excess. Instead, the album sounds like it was recorded on a laptop.
On ‘The Glory Of Love’ the Primals look back at their earliest years. A retro 1960s pop number complete with handclaps and Phil Spector-style melody. That one’s not bad. Even better is ‘Uptown’, a party bomb that’s just waiting to be released by a remix.
In the end, there’s a lot of talking about revolution and getting high but very little fire in the music. So I bought the Primal’s new single ‘Can’t Go Back’ instead. Not for the A-side, but for the cover of Hawkwind’s 1973 hit ‘Urban Guerilla’ on the flip. Produced by the Primal’s guitarist, Andrew Innes, it’s no nonsense, just the business. Maybe there’s hope for the next album?
Listen Here to ‘Beautiful Future’ and download tracks from the album from the iTunes store.
Music For Eurosceptics: Carla Bruni ‘Comme Si De Rien N’Etait’
What you get on ‘Comme Si’ is French mainstream pop with a strong nod to the Chanson tradition. There are two kinds of people who can belt out a whopping good chanson: They’re either young and disgusted (Brel, Piaf) or old and cantankerous (the rest). Bruni is neither.
She is at her best when she isn’t trying too hard to sound breathy and her backing band stops taking itself so seriously. There are three songs on ‘Comme Si’ that I’d like to draw your attention to. ‘Salut Marin’ has an old school Chanson flavour, ‘Le Temps Perdu’ has a wonky cabaret charme and ‘Notre Grand Amour Est Mort’ takes a slight nod at the Serge Gainsbourg school of French 60’s Beat, even down to the title.
The rest is really not my cup of tea. It’s all a bit ‘Celine Dion lite’ to me.
Listen Here to Carla Bruni’s ‘Comme Si De Rien N’Etait’ and download the album from iTunes.
