ARE YOU HAPPY VERY HAPPY
If a Litmus test for brilliant Electronic Musicians was ever formulated, Machine Boy would be a benchmarker. His latest offering HAPPY VERY HAPPY offers up his trademark mixture of instrumental soundscapes overlaid with a minimally used digitised female vocal - a penchant which he shares with his contemporary Mistabishi. His title track is a tinkly synth-led number which belies the lyrical content. Happy very Happy seems to be covering the fiery topic of duplicity. In typical MB style the iconic space dude appears to have a message for us all.
Ram Shakler starts out minimal minus the vocal and builds on the synth layers. Mine Staff has a different tempo, is more upbeat with flashes of, what can only be described as, machineboy’esque synth sounds overlaying the basic beat. By the time we get to Grime Hero, he’s displaying his talents as a drummer and we’re hearing those little military drum rolls that hold this track together. Shake Down sounds like he’s playing around with a Bontempi. This is a little repetitive for my electronic taste but it makes good use of its space on this release as the little hi-energy number of the pack.
MB is a cyber drummer. His alter ego is Dean Cook, a Birmingham artist with a reputation for a variety of musical and artistic projects that you would find hard-pressed to hang together in one genre. Cook tends to take things off-kilter with the beats that he uses but sometimes he plays nice for those of us with the inability to digest the truly avant-garde. With Space Man Five he employs an almost cheeky little bossa nova underlay to this great track which busts out all over as it progresses.
Closing the release is Shooting Space. It’s a soundscape that is faintly reminiscent of something Eno/Fripp would produce which is no bad thing in my book.
Oh wait, I’ve missed a track…well I haven’t really. I just wanted to save the best until last. AUTOMATED ALICE. This is the best track that I think MB has ever produced. Unsure if it was inspired by Jeff Noon’s 1996 cyberpunk novel. It’s a very clever composition, not too left-field that it can’t cross over to mainstream and has just the right amount of Jean Michel Jarre to make the masses happy.
A polished and professional offering from a musician who has become a musical auteur of electronica.
Why not be HAPPY very HAPPY for 2011?
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Machine-Boy/23894281992
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Happy-Very/dp/B003YSUQNG/
0 comments:
Post a Comment