August 12, 2004

{ Jason Forrest The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash }

Remember IDM? That's Intelligent Dance Music in case you've forgotten. Round about the time Radiohead released _Kid A_ it was pretty big news. Music journalists all over the world were tripping over themselves to find a genre in which to find context to review _Kid A_ and reassure themselves they were "with it," leading to all sorts of angry forum posts and other rants from folks who had been down with the IDM scene long before a certain pop band put out an album that didn't sound anything like their previous stuff. I never did get a good definition of just what IDM was supposed to be, but my best guess is it can be applied to any artist who eschews instruments for computers but avoids the driving "ng-chuk ng-chuk ng-chuk" beat of terrible house music. My problem with most of the stuff I've heard deemed IDM is it's awfully damned flat and empty. Which is by contrast, rather circuitously, what I love about _The Unrelenting Songs of the 1979 Post Disco Crash_ (hereafter referred to as _Post Disco Crash_ because, christ, that's a long title!). This album is as loud and garish as the music that inspired it. A swirling, bombastic mess of rising crescendos and shifting beats, this is a sharp contrast to the rest of the IDM crowd. You won't find any thumping techno beats or repetitive vocal samples, but you also won't find the sparse, tinny droning that I commonly associate with the IDM genre. _Post Disco Crash_ is so smart it seems stupid, which is largely because of the source material plundered to create it. _Post Disco Crash_ hides a knowing smirk behind the idiotic swagger and heady machismo of disco and dance music. A mixture of both living human warmth and cold electronic precision, _Post Disco Crash_ is like a blender stuffed full of three decades of dance music and set to chop. What you get isn't a thick slurry, but a chunky stew full of toothy goodness, each fragment contributing its own flavor. There's really no point in isolating a single track, they're all part of the same swirling miasma of sound. Beats and melodies introduced in one track reappear throughout the album tweaked enough to make you think "Gee, that sounds awful familiar" before you realize you'd just heard it two tracks ago. This is an album to be listened to as a whole, and more than once at that. Each subsequent listen I've found some new cleverness to appreciate.

» Cock Rock Disco

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By Benjamin in Music | Comments:

Comments

I am completely in love with that album cover.... Genius...

Posted by: shane at August 13, 2004 3:15 AM

Mitchell Akiyama --- that's all I gotta say. Look him up.

Posted by: LOKi at August 16, 2004 2:18 PM

My damn good buddy and fellow CrownDozen author Tony Boggs records as Joshua Treble, and I can guarantee that you would dig his sound as well. As a matter of fact, he records with the above mentioned Mitchell Akiyama as the duo D�sormais (they've done 2 rekkids together thus far, and more to come). Primo stuff.

Posted by: Shane at August 17, 2004 2:34 AM

Glad you like the cover art. Her website is www.jenrayillustration.com

Thanks for the great review!
JF

Posted by: Jason Forrest at August 27, 2004 3:52 PM

Well, Google messed up the relevancy of this page

Posted by: cock rock at November 14, 2005 4:38 PM

Three phrases should be among the most common in our daily usage. They are: Thank you, I am grateful and I appreciate.

Posted by: extender at December 16, 2005 11:30 PM