Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles - Enter The Magical Mystery Tour
This new mash up of the Beatles & Wu-Tang Clan isn’t really strictly a blend of Magical Mystery Tour with Enter the 36 Chambers, nor is it necessarily a combination of actual Beatles material. Most of the loops and samples sound like they’re taken from a reggae Beatles cover band, whatever the Dread Zeppelin of Beatles might be, or taken from Big Band arrangements of Beatles hits. Without working from the actual source material, the album suffers from the first time curiosity of the whole “How’d they do it?” thing. That said, all the songs are buffered with radio news clips of Beatlemania at it’s highest, clips of teenage girls camped outside of the Beatles’ hotel or interviews with the band at the time. These clips make what can be a tedious listen (27 songs here people) entertaining, and for every lackluster track or failed mash in the mashing up process, there’s a fit that is near perfect. Check the obvious mash up of “Got Your Money” and “You Never Give Me Your Money,” or especially “Uzi (Pinky Ring),” which flips through the dial of Beatles greatest hits with the change of Wu narrator, and as we know, any one of these songs can have a LOT of Wu narrators. Worth a listen to check the archival interview stuff overlaid over the music, and for the occasional home run combo.
It’s a free download now from Tea Set Records, check it out at http://teasearecords.net/wuvsbeatles.cfm
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Beach House - TEST
Beach House – Teen Dream
For their third album, Beach House’s Victoria Legrand continues upon a grand sonic theme, building narcotic, intoxicating songs for a cloudy day and to “gather medicine for a heartache,” as she croons on “Silver Soul.” Mostly, Beach House songs exhibit this sort of rainy day, sleepy-eyed charm, but on Teen Dream, they let a few rays of sunshine come through the clouds. Not a full on summer day, but just a few rays of brightness in an otherwise cool landscape.
Beach House songs still have a singular quality of seeming to float, the atmospherics of the organ and the heavily reverb-ed guitar making these songs both atmospheric but still grounded by the deep and sonorous quality of the vocals. On Teen Dream, the drums have begun to do some of the work of the songs, elevating them to previously unforeseen tempos and actual energy. On “10 Mile Stereo,” a song that starts softly and builds to a seriously triumphant crescendo, both the steady increase in the energy from the drums and the energy in which Ms. Legrand belts out the chorus make what is without a doubt their brightest song to date. “Lover of Mine” uses the drums to craft what sounds like a charming document from the days of Rhythm & Soul, Vol. 1, something akin to a Beach House song that you could dance to.
The casual distance that makes Beach House both important and accessible, i.e., the strength of the melodies from both the guitar & the vocals, is all still here, as this record is not far from what one might expect the new Beach House album to sound like. It’s both a baby step forward from their stellar 2007 album Devotion and a slight slide step sideways from a sound that has thus far defined this band. Songs like the album’s 1st single “Zebra” and “Norway” still owe a debt to progenitors of the sound like the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star. Teen Dream manages to further these comparisons while making the statement that Beach House no longer needs to be compared to the bands that came before them, but compared with these bands.
For their third album, Beach House’s Victoria Legrand continues upon a grand sonic theme, building narcotic, intoxicating songs for a cloudy day and to “gather medicine for a heartache,” as she croons on “Silver Soul.” Mostly, Beach House songs exhibit this sort of rainy day, sleepy-eyed charm, but on Teen Dream, they let a few rays of sunshine come through the clouds. Not a full on summer day, but just a few rays of brightness in an otherwise cool landscape.
Beach House songs still have a singular quality of seeming to float, the atmospherics of the organ and the heavily reverb-ed guitar making these songs both atmospheric but still grounded by the deep and sonorous quality of the vocals. On Teen Dream, the drums have begun to do some of the work of the songs, elevating them to previously unforeseen tempos and actual energy. On “10 Mile Stereo,” a song that starts softly and builds to a seriously triumphant crescendo, both the steady increase in the energy from the drums and the energy in which Ms. Legrand belts out the chorus make what is without a doubt their brightest song to date. “Lover of Mine” uses the drums to craft what sounds like a charming document from the days of Rhythm & Soul, Vol. 1, something akin to a Beach House song that you could dance to.
The casual distance that makes Beach House both important and accessible, i.e., the strength of the melodies from both the guitar & the vocals, is all still here, as this record is not far from what one might expect the new Beach House album to sound like. It’s both a baby step forward from their stellar 2007 album Devotion and a slight slide step sideways from a sound that has thus far defined this band. Songs like the album’s 1st single “Zebra” and “Norway” still owe a debt to progenitors of the sound like the Cocteau Twins and Mazzy Star. Teen Dream manages to further these comparisons while making the statement that Beach House no longer needs to be compared to the bands that came before them, but compared with these bands.
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