Day 8: Bundle of Joy by Land of the Loops (Album Choice: Lord of Sushi)
WITH A BONUS REVIEW
Land of the Loops is the alias of recording artist Alan Sutherland. He makes music for commercials as well as loop-heavy indierock-influenced electronica. I know very little about this guy, I specifically chose this request because it was listed as obscure. I've been saying how often my predictions were right or wrong, so I'll say my prediction before listening:
Negativland meets
The Flashbulb (they listed him as breaks, I don't know many breakbeat artists so I just used an IDM example)
Turns out I was about 70% right. There is an overall similarity to
Negativland, but many key differences. There's less overall sampling, more respect for musical elements (such as heavy drum usage, actual singing, actual melodies), and no social commentary whatsoever. There still is humor to be found in the samples however, with tracks like
Multi-Family Garage Sale using vintage movie samples for dadaist humor. That other half of my guess though, it was WRONG. I don't see how this is classified as breaks. Nothing here reminds me much of
Aphex Twin, The Flashbulb, Venetian Snares or anyone else who makes drum-heavy electronic music.
So what should it be classified as? That varies. A few tracks like
I Dream Of Ghosts and
Mass. Ave. And Beyond are basically downtempo with some samples on top. (Imagine
Boards Of Canada's cousin that recieves welfare.)Some songs are pop/twee pop with hip-hop drums, like
Cruisin' For Sentient Beings and
Heidi Cakes. The rest are
Negativland-esque sound collages with... You know what I'll say it because I don't have a better term, breaks (hypocrite!) and some other instruments.
At 58:58,
Bundle Of Joy seems to be another electronic album that goes on longer than it needs to. Many tracks like
Mathematical Park go on for more time than they need to, and at times the album seems unfocused. Considering some of my favorite artists RELY on being unfocused like
Mr. Bungle and
Beck I don't really have the right to complain but I don't give a damn. All these complaints are more petty then I make them seem, this is still a pretty decent album. And I'm going to end this in a very half-butted manner because I have 45 minutes left after my computer deleted my review (A SECOND TIME! IN LESS THEN A WEEK!). Also, I looked it up and turns out breakbeat is a much more versatile term then I expected. Hooray for being wrong!
Bonus review time!
Today's bonus review is another obscure one,
Mixed Melodies EP by SourceForm (also known as Connconn7), requested by Sourceform/Connconn7. For further notice, if people want me to review their music, I'd like them to remember this Mark Prindle quote:
"I can't promise a POSITIVE review, but I can promise that I won't give you a grade lower than a 1."
With that quote in mind, I'm gonna give this a number rating since it's a mini-review. So here we go.
An important (but subjective) part of track order. DO NOT put a remix right after the original track. This is especially important in electronic music, where things can get repetitive quickly. Do a reprise instead, prevents possible burnout/track skip. It worked for The Beatles, it worked for Frank Zappa, it should work for you. I will say, a simple BPM change made the remix a lot more engaging.
Intro (Half) is my track of choice. Good build-up and short but not too brief overall. Unless it's actually a half track. Other then that, this is basically your average acid techno. So I don't know what number to give it. Whatever.
/10
I finished this with a half-hour to go. TAKE THAT, CRAPPY CRASHING COMPUTER!
Here's a free download to the bonus review EP:
http://soundcloud.com/sourceform/set...d-melodies-ep/