Careless Interpretation : The Diary of A Music-Junkie

(the sky has just been coloured with rainbows a few minutes ago, now its steadily growing dark. the dark cloud, ready to drop drips of water, moving scarily in a large mass directed by the power of wind)

as the typical of romanticism atmosphere started to flow into the room, i feel pretty energized to use these moment to write something, to benefit from it before it all fades out. the colour of the dark blueish sky mixes with the yellow glaze of the room sprayed by my table lamp, the gentle but powerful movement of the cloud as the backdrop of landscape outside the window, the dark orange color of my window curtain, and lastly the cool temperature that kept me reminded of bandung at night, all contribute to the atmosphere.

on the stereo is manzel. an african american, from his heydays at the closing of the 7th decades of the 19th century, playing what probably the most common and the most reknown artwork of music of that age, the funk.

manzel was an liutenant in the US army. midway in his professional life he decided to make a record, possibly influenced by the growing number of funk bands by african american at the time, and try to make his own luck in this business. he started a band consisted of people he knew including family members and with Shad O’Shea, a not-so-famous recording studio engineer, succeded in breeding a record, or maybe a 90% record. the 10% was finished by O’Shea since Manzel had to go to Europe for a post in US Army stated there. O’Shea made the necessary promotion, send the necessary samples to hundreds of radios and recording companies, and phone the necessary president, vice president, and A&R people. did people bought what’s in the record? yes they did, but not for then.

manzel’s own vision of his flavour of funk had been somewhat reached over the horizon of people’s understanding and appreciation as a dance music at the time. they turned it down, claiming that it was something they cannot use at that present time..

if it werent for the rejections though, manzel wouldnt be such a rare find nowadays. his recording was rare, so futuristic at the time that when it was finally resurfaced by the samplers of the 90’s, it became a huge sampling hit. the backward drum roll, especially, become, if not stealed, a source of many hiphopers and mc’s base sounds. the momentum raise continously until finally the master remixer from new york, kenny dope (Masters At Work) came and offer O’Shea (Manzel was nowhere to be found) a re-release of their well known label, Dopebrothers Records.

Now, im listening to dopebrothers release, already with special dopebrothers remixes, makes the thump even harder and the funk even funkier.

the cd entitled Midnight Theme, contained 13 tracks and one secret tracks, a special remix from dopebrothers. the cd compiled the whole important works of manzel and his band, and that including Space Funk, Midnight Theme, and It’s Over Now.

i heard Manzel’s work for the first time in the Lost on Arrival album from Naked Music Records. as you may know, the album contains all off center deep house tracks, ever expanding the deep house horizon, incorporating the element of breakbeat, tribal, and big beat. but the manzel track is special. manzel appear at the last of the tracks, spanning in a full 5 minutes. its introduction until the end of the song has imprisoned me in the aura of infinite funkness. so heavy the funk was, i forgot what i was doing and start smiling and shaking like a madman on the loose. and thats when i determined to go for this album whenever i can. when i found it, i remember i can’t stop thanking God.

the champion of the album turned out to be space funk. a bit disappointment since i was hoping for some bigger funk kicker on the album. but it was not a regret purchase because the other tracks ,even if they don’t have the cool, arrogant soul a funkster in the Space Funk has, have come close. take Midnight Theme for example, a mellow dramatic funk, a sparkling ray of 70’s sunshine with its dreamy hammond and vocalizing mini Moog. you can almost feel the need to ride on one of those open top 70’s cadillacs during listening to this. Second, listen Evil, Wicked, Mean and Nasty.. couldnt you just feel its influence to the contemporary funk connoiseur of nowadays like Brand New Heavies, especially for the Heavies instrumental tracks, such as Put The Funk Back In It or Mr. Tanaka, its strikingly similar. It conjures you up a picture of this pimp daddy walking down the street with his big whopping bellbottom and 10 inch heels shoes. Just For You i think is Barry White’s Love Unlimited Orchestra’s lost track. Ultra standard in orchestral characteristics, luxurious and glamorous as in any Barry White’s dancefloor. The Party is also a dancefloor filler and a counterpart for Love Unlimited’s.

Lastly, Manzel and his band put a good work in pouring his imagination into a work of art, especially Space Funk, to be understood of its importance only 2,5 decades later. a sign of geniousity often underestimated by people of his time. this album is truly one of those journeys to the 70’s times, prooving once again to the world what a great decade it has missed when the 80’s came. the overall flairs left tasted in the mouth after hearing this album are immense appreciations to Manzel and, at the same time, deep enviousness to be able to live in his age.

(Sunset is breaking. Im listening to everything but the girl, five fathom. Swing. Groove. Joy.)

For some reason, i decided that i wanna write a little less since now. i just realized that what i write, not regarding the content, could be quite confusing due to the amount of words in each posting. Beside that i also tried to write more slowly, putting each idea in its own paragraph, like how a writer supposed to be. i have a feelin its gonna be hard, but i will try the best i could.

today i went to a sammlertage gathering. that is the gathering of record collectors all over germany to sell their unused records. they have a lot of these events in germany. indicating the potential market for these second hand records are very present. these people came from everywhere, from different ages, selling perhaps records they have collected for years. the numbers of the records are overwhelming, possibly hundreds of thousands showed up today.

today i was looking for blueboy, tahiti 80, burt bacharach, lois lane. what i got was Gene, Cinnamon, Everything But The Girl, Earth Wind & Fire, Brand New Heavies, and what excited me the most are two, first a Comfort Zone compilation (a know compilation orieting at deep house) and second are Omar’s For Pleasure album, a promotional, sleeveless album for only 2 Eu. in total today i spent 31 euro, or about 350ribu in rupiah, not bad for a days shopping.

the incident that i didnt get what i was looking for in a sammler tage day is becoming pretty normal now. why? first, starting from me, maybe i was expecting too much out of this event. second, the staggering number of records that are left there mostly un-categorized, misplaced, and inconvenient for retrieval turn records-finding into a work of sweat and grump. third, its becoming clear now that records that are available at these events majorly are rock records. names like black sabbath, led zeppelin, beatles, rolling stones stacked the majority of record containers. in fact there were so many, and practicly the same release, are being offered in the place, giving me notion as if they were competing.

maybe this phenomena could be understood if i took the time to see who the sellers are. The sellers are majority old guys man! middle age men, growing bald but long hairtail, moustache hardly trimmed, dressed in outdated leather jackets, dirty and sometimes smelly, seems as if they were once groupies of the classic rock bands i mentioned.

but nevertheless im pretty satisfied with what i got today, even  though its only singles singles singles, the albums are only 2 : omar, comfort zone, and cinnamon.

right, before i got really hungry, lets talk about everything but the girl. over the years, ebtg has surely change, from somewhat pop, even sometimes jazzy, singer songwriter type of songs to a synthesizer and buzzing electronic sounds based band. but dont be mistaken they are great though. reminds me, even their latest album is entitled "ebtg remixes, adapt or die", which kinda proved what i just said, isnt it..

tracey thorn’s vocal, as distinctive as it is, already become one of the most recognized voices of the 90’s. her rather heavy and sentimental voice, seldomly show more expression than necessary, have spanned from late 80’s, during 90’s until now. tracy’s voice is somewhat corresponds to her actions on stage. no matter how groovy the sound pumping from the speaker, tracey didnt seem to get carried away by the music that much. swaying her head, shyly, carefully is more what she is. i didnt recognize any significant change in her vocal during those years, even if the musical mastermind behind her, ben watt, had changed dramatically their course of music. still the heavy toned singer….

the track five fathoms came from the album temperamental which is released on 1999, the year i went into college. funnily, i just realize this track during my occupation in hard rock and just in short period became my favorite track of choice. due equally to its grooviness and lightness, makes it a good track for radio-playing.

five fathoms starts with a thumping kick drums. swings like techno and sounds like one, due to the highly synthesized choices of sounds. if not saved by the lightness presented by tracey’s style of singing and pop-like lyrical structure, this track would be a hard on techno on the loose. a sense of breakbeat also readily apparent in the first bar of the song, creating even more funkier song. the interesting thing about hearing this song is it sound more like a remixed pop track than an original out-of-the-artist track. you can almost imagine how the song would be without its techno-ish accompaniment. without it, imaginably, it will still be a good song. i guess from this point we could convey the clever songwriting process of ben watt. first make a good pop song, second add brilliant accompaniment of techno-electronica, result : a pumping groove cool poppish everything-but-the-girl flavored electonica. the cleverness of blending the full poplike verse-bridge-chorus lyrics and the techno instrumentation also remain the key of this distinctive but beloved everything but the girl sound.

other aspect than those above, five fathoms also introduced us to the deep side of everything but the girl. the lingering, floating like tracey thorn voice in this song in fact produces the essential ingredient for any deep house songs. the sampling of tracey’s voice into a reverberating, in-chamber like echos also shows the specific deep housey direction of ben watt for this song. in fact, during the years after this release, ben had produced some of the best deep house compilation in the market, known as lazy dog 1 & 2.

all in all, this track is a showcase of ebtg’s advancement in electronic music into the realm of house. if you’re feeling like listening a groovy, pumping techno music, with a floating sense of deep house, but yet retains a poppish easy listening characters, this is the track for you.

have you ever had a feeling you had enough of listening somebody’s comment because they are so dumb? and the fact that you have to listen to it every day makes you even more sick listening to it? well i do.
this morning, one of my friend at class throws one more of her stupid comments again. one that has ABSOLUTELY no relevance, no contribution to anybody, not the class let alone the teachers knowledge, and even if it has, everybody knew it already cause she’s just mixing up what the lecturers had said previously.
i mean how do you deal to this type of dumbness. are you supposed to tell her to the face? cause no hell way she took it when we laugh at the class to her…maybe she was dumb enough to assume the laugh was somesort of compliments to her.
lets get into the lecturer’s shoes about this. you are talking eagerly about this topic, then suddenly come this girl, sweet faced but stubborn as hell girl, trying to assist what you have to say but fail miserably, instead just stalled you down in the explaining process. and she did it from time to time. dont you just wanna….give her a slap and say shut up??
i mean man, some people just dont realize how terribly "un-genious" they are.

now, staying out from those "un-geniosity", lets talk about about something that is really genius…jamiroquai’s single’s space cowboy.

its been a long time since i heard this single the first time. maybe 1997. back at that time, i think its just one of the coolest thing my brother in law has as music collection. so cool in fact, i even bring it to the school to show the kids that i have such thing. btw during that time, my brother in law was in US, he left the cd in jakarta with me.

a single.. i mean, who wouldve had such thing like that at the time in Indonesia. it would truly be an indispensable contribution to my record collection, i thought. even though i perfectly realize that the cd was NOT mine. i have to keep repeating that to myself over and over, to try not to get the devil inside me surfaces up and claim the cd.

my record collection at the time was very small, limited only to a couple of singles i bought in US (now some has disappeared), among those singles were sneaker pimps’ 6 underground, duncan sheik’s barely breathing, rem’s e-bow the letter and a complete collection of oasis singles from their first 2 albums (i was mad about oasis at the time). i remember the time so dearly as the early times of my collector life. when i had just identified myself as a collector. when i was just starting the ritual of going into cd and cassette store every week. when i was just building up and collecting the important records as a foundation stone to my whole collection, stuffs like earth wind and fire : the best, barry white : the best of, brand new heavies : shelter (those cassette always stays at my car all the way until in 2001 when i finally installed a cd player in car). when i was just building up my reputation as a true music enthusiast, changing, i guess, from the normal student type to the advanced musical type. when i was just being snob as to offer my friends a service of making a compilation in order broaden that reputation of mine. etc etc.

it was a fun and full-of-energy times. it was times when music seems most mysterious because not knowing where the boundaries yet and the incredible amount of collection that need to be discover. every other time i would discover something new about the music and proudly would explain it to my friend - such a proud feeling when you do that, when you showed that you know more than them and slowly receiving the status, which i most proud of to bear, as the music freak (although it turned out that it was only to be among the closest circle of my friends, most other friends in the school i guess dont realize this reputation i was slowly gaining in my inner circle).

its pretty long journey until i got accepted as music serious or music connosieur, or whatever you wanna call it. even in the closest circle of my friends. i remember dharu, one my closest buddies during highschool, publicly underestimate my musical capability. i cant remember what he said but it certainly mocks the potential of me having a music record, let alone cool records. he stereotyped me as this nerd kid who always studies (i guess because in the first grade i stayed in this A class and doesnt hang around very much from the kids from other class, let alone accepted in the circle of the cool kids. just when i was in 2nd grade and osis, i started to be accepted as, not one of the cool kids gang members, but a cool kid who is just ok by everybody). and i get pretty offended by that, yeah offended. i dont want to be consider a nerd kid, i dont want to be considered something im not, and definitely not to be considered to such an underestimation like this. i remember talking to myself : "you’ll see, you’ll see someday, you’ll know how musicly-knowable and cool kid i am, and a lot more than you are". did i prove it now? after 8 years? i dunno…maybe..but i guess that image of me i got from osis and ketua panitia pentas seni 68 during 3rd grade are the ones that stick closely to everyone’s mind. instead of me the collector and owner of some of the coolest records in this school..
but on the other hand, it is proven i guess. since dharu and hanum and harlie and arip and other closest friends of mine knows that i was in hard rock fm working as a Music Director.

i was working at hard rock fm fact was also a hard fact to convince to those who knew me only as, a normal kid (those who doesnt really close to me), an organizational kid (those who know me at campus) or a simple party kid (those who know me at campus beyond normal himpunan mahasiswa environment). i recognized their disbelieve eyelook. their look as if saying "really, you know music??" that was such an offense to me who has follows music for years. i mean just because you dont see it, doesnt mean its not there.

even though a hard time for me to be accepted as serious music lovers, i miss my high school days badly. it was a fun days. during the build up of the collection, there were many things happening to my life. there were many unforgetable moments.

maybe there is another reason why i love music and my music so much. it is the mere fact that they are always there. as i said during the build up of my collection, there were many things happening to my life. and the funny thing is for every moments that appear, there is always, somehow, a piece of music that i had been playing that incidentally become the background soundtrack of that whole experience. these music, later, became a key reference of that event. it became an indispensable cast of the story of the event itself. it became the eye witness of the event, a storyteller that can shot me back to the event in the many many more years ahead, just like now…

it feels good everytime the storyteller told you the story one more time…

alright now, enough nostalgia, lets go back to the business. The jamiroquai single, which cover you’re probably looking right now is released in 1994, just shortly before the release of the "return of the space cowboy" album i guess. it contain 6 tracks, all of them are space cowboy of course. 2 instrumental, 1 original and the other three are edits and remixes. it is produced and arranged by jay kay himself, while the remixes and additional production by david morales.
the tracks are arranged pretty interestingly. the tracks closest to the original (the original itself, the instrumental, and the radio edit) is put on one side (side A), while the remixes (classic radio remix, club instrumental/babinstrumental, classic club remix) is put on side B.

if you hear the single now you would probably feel it a bit outdated. this single and the remix are typical of the early house of the 90’s, in fact it is remixed by the undisputable david morales, a big and trusted hand for house in the 90’s. you would probably even feel it monotonistic. to tell you the truth i didnt buy this record mainly for the music (because it is jamiroquai, its proven quality) but for the nostalgic sentiments and the collectors value of it.

nevertheless, this is a superb song. regardless of the band. truly.. the funk embodied in space cowboy are just out of this world, especially at the time where i just begin to absorb acid jazz which also the time where i just started my collection.

the experimentation in this song is also heavily felt. and this what makes this single very exciting. the knows-no boundary attitude they adopt, the careless but awe-making experiment, keeps us as spectators hold our breaths, impended and curiously waiting for whats next. the experimentation fuels the energy for this song. reminds us the very first reason to like jamiroquai. theres nothing more interesting than seeing young cool groovy jazzers pumpin their creativity out, jamming spontaneously. i mean young jazzers are cool enough, but young groovy jazzers jammin’ out…way out of this world…

the bass played important part especially in this song. bassist (was), stuart zender, is a masterful young artist. his slapping on the bass, his never-ending exploration of the frets kept me wanting for more and more. it kept me trying to mimic his - i bet - cool bassist-finger movement and kept me pretending i was in this band called jamiroquai and performing as its bassist. particularly, his creative composition of notes sequence for the chorus on this song is unforgetable. for many more years to come, it become the instrumental lick i would never forget..

stuart zender collaborate with drummer derrick mckenzie in this song. mckenzie, no matter seem low profile, has role which contribution cannot be underestimated in terms of the funkiness of the song. for a kid who is new at jazz drumming thing, the drum track in this song, coinciding with the bass, provide the best lesson for me to study how a groovy funky rhythming should be executed in an acid jazz song. the drumming, however already excited enough the bass improvisation is, seems didnt want to be just the lazy dog in this song. it is more than effortful to improvise, eager to drop its own spray of creativity. the result was staggering, an interplay of bass and drum at maximum level of unpredictability but yet still groovy. in fact it is rarely you can find, except for chorus, the exact similar bar stuart or derrick played previously, always improvises..

the last of the band worthy of mentioning is the keyboardist. striving among the already busy atmosphere of bass and drum, the keyboard provides a melodical approach to take over the stage. volume leveling, 70s synth sound, all colored its playing, but what most kicking indeed is its playing of modulation. the notes, despite already up and down in nature, are being transported inside this never ending rollercoaster the whole song. the sound produced makes me feel like in a space age movie, floating and dancing in outer space like a space cowboy..

it is a characteristic of jay kay, the vocalist of jamiroquai, to sing like stevie wonder. his way of hitting the high notes sounds strikingly similar to how wonder uses his stomach voice to reach high notes. in fact in their early years, jamiroquai used to be called a follower of stevie wonder, not only to his way of singing but also to the type of soul and funk stevie introduced.
jay’s voice belongs to perhaps the soprano type of voice, since it (and stevie wonder’s) mimics somewhat female-like voice tone. as well relatively higher in frequency, jay’s voice is also smooth, during several times in the record, he literally whispers and getting playful with his sounds. experimentation in fact not only conducted by musicians with instruments at hand..

david morales works on all the three remixes in this single. morales’ touch on this song provide the essential modification needed for club use. the thumping kick drums, the steady mid tempo of the 90’s, and the classic vocal sampling characterize his whole mix. there are however no smart instrumentation, like jazzy deep house or nu jazz-type. maybe he (morales) leaves all the jazz thing to jamiroquai to exploit. the resulting sound seems not really remix in terms of nowadays sense of remix, but more like "club"-isize the song. for a period of longer listening, the track would however be dull and boring.

of all, i would choose the album version as the best track. the raw and jazzy version had put enough fuel for me to groove on endlessly, without leaving boredom at the end of the track. the second would be the instrumental version of the album version, also for the same reason. and the third, the closest to club use, is the classic radio remix. lastly the rating for this single is 4 stars, a worthy rating. if youre looking for an acid jazz band who is full of funk, groove, and thirst for experimentation like no other, search no more, it can only be jamiroquai at its best, on space cowboy…

one cd attracts me from a pile of items stranded in my shelf. its kinda shine itself while i was glancing over the other cds. a simple title, called outside. the artist is omar, also a simple name.

i dunno much about omar (i know he has the same name of an old friend of mine) but i knew his music for quite some time now. obviously you heard it too,..there’s nothing like this?? you mustve heard about this song right? it was a famous song in probably in 1993. if you haven’t then its worth asking for. many people i know who are far far from knowing what omar is actually about (acid jazz that is) liked this song. when i heard people gave complement to this song, i feel (smiling) glad, because i found other people with the same interest (and for your information, i had this habit that i can feel pretty close to somebody who had the same musical interest as me, so sometimes i tried really for myself not to be too ’sok deket’ or something like that, you know what i mean right?), but yet at the same time i feel kinda snob as if i wanna say "you dont know anythin man..", typical people who are really serious about the music i guess (too serious perhaps)..

ive been into acid jazz since maybe 1997, and thats 8 years ago and during that time has spent an uncountable amount of time deepening and searching for acid jazz and listening to its records. ive grew up with them, spent my most glorious times with the accompaniment of brand new heavies, james taylor quartet, corduroy, jhelisa, and of course omar. they now stick permanently to my life, engraved in memories. there are so many of those memories now, dating back since high school, back where my friends were just listening to nirvana and the mighty mighty bosstones.

getting close to this music makes me feel they are my friends, friends who always stay there and, if you "called" them at the right time, friends who can ease your pain and increase your pleasures. so big of an impact this blend of jazz and funk and hip hop, i think i will never have enough appreciation and compliments for them.

so here it is, one of the characters of my life, omar. an african american trenched in soul and funk so deep, its so hard to separate omar from his ultra-distinctive soul type of music. its soft and sexy and laidback, like a sunday afternoon.

the single name is outside, its only a 4 tracker (means contain only 4 tracks), in which only one of them is outside, the others are remixes version of his other pre-released song, saturday. i was hoping that there would be remixes of outside in this single, but it turned out that nothing, i guess this cd was intended as an introduction of outside to the market only and not as a single for club use or something like that. this song belongs to his album For Pleasure, a 1994 release on bmg records uk. on this album he was helped by motown legend, Lamont Dozier and the gospel group Nu Colours on the backing vocal.

it started off with a string and chimes that escalate to high note really quickly, plucks of violin strings, and a small piano licks. then suddenly it blows with the entrance of the roll of drums. the initial string that introduce the first couple of seconds of the song is really mystical. as if it retracts you to certain altitude in the sky very quickly, imagine moving down on a rail from a high point in a rollercoaster ride. and theres a certain mystery to the notes. it makes you stop and surrender to its hypnotize.

the verse that follows immediately made clear of the mystery and mystical that has been building up. the immediate drum, hihat, and snare play in a medium to low tempo surrounding. the strings enter again with new notes, insisting its existence throughout the whole song. the background vocal enters at the same time consisting of female and male. the pre-given vocal task for them is not heavy one, just a mere consonant of "mmm" but the result was astonishing. the female by the group Nu Colours, reminds you of the soul ladies with big bee-hive hair like the supremes and diana ross, provided supporting soft high-toned vocal to the song, intentionally creating a "floating" feeling. the soft bassy male background vocal providing the second arrangement of vocal is occupied to forego this floating feeling even more.  as soon as a bar finished, then omar took the center stage. omar’s voice, sharing a class with other soul contemporaries like d’angelo and maxwell, are truly i would say, the voice of a womanizer, a woman slayer, a seducer on the loose… romanticism is effortless to omar. his own voice provided the perfect template to seduce any woman.

then i must say something about the rhythm. the rhythm was so midtempo, as like a pitched down funk song, the drums cooly adopts a little low-profile breaks attitude. it molded the perfect swing for me, the type of guy who like to dreams and get romantic. the way you can sway you head with this song, is just in between spandau ballet’s true and barry white’s ive got so much to give (and that is seductive my friend). to me it is absolutely fascinating. overall, imagine barry white’s orchestra playing his most seductive hits with just a little bit of funkier drumming.

the lyrics sounds like :

my daddy says when he’s old enough

he’s gonna go back to the place where he grew up

he can feel the world closing in

he says its time for a new way of thinking and living

the lyrics denote a sense of reflection and contemplation of omar, undeniably speaks for the sensitivity and sentiments instilled inside him. as if trying to understand the world a little better.

too much to mention of what’s going on

but please believe me there’s so much i gotta cool it down

lastly i would propose, the essentiality of this single lies on the rarity of these kinds of song to surface again in the near or distant future. omar is just a strict followers of the old school, following the tracks and footsteps of the founders and the masters, barry white, marvin gaye, al green and all those great founding fathers of soul music we all love and care, and there arent so much of these kinds of artists anymore. not forgetting the fact the orchestratic arrangements and delicate recording requirements he insists in this record, such a reminder of a perfectionist mind once owned by the late great, the quiet storm, Maestro Barry White. this is a classic record. buy it, absorb it, cherish its greatness, the greatness of Omar.

aha, just finished my lunch. today is the 5th day i ate meat soup. wonder why i took this freakin’ soup consistently for every freakin meal for the past 5 days? yeah well because i umm ( pretty embarassed) cook it a little bit too much. i put in like 1 kg of beef in it complete with potato, carrot, corn, and red beans. oh yeah, right? like you know how much 1 kg of beef weight anyway? well if you have never cook a single pile of food in your boring old life, youll never get what im saying alright, youll never know how much 1 kg of meat is and certainly i dont believe you know how much 1 kg will last..so, take it from me, just shove it, its MANY!!
yeah theres such a big pile turned out, i kinda confused when i am gonna finish before it started to rot. well its not that i dont know that 1 kg is such a big pile of meat, but i just wanna save time and energy for cooking. why? >=< wait, you DO know that im a student right? and not in INDONESIA right, where you can have tukang nasi goreng goin around in front of your house every night? here in berlin, the only one goin around at night is only the green people, i mean the police, and they aint havin the mood for sellin any sort of nasi f**kin goreng whenever…
yeah, i know i should have just cook half kilo and accept the fact that 5 days old meat soup doesnt exactly taste the way a meat soup supposed to taste anymore, plus the fact that you have been having them for 5 days, kinda shows that there might be a danger that your stomach might already adapt to the normal taste of a soup and later refuse to intake anything else other than it, now thats dangerous boys…..

ok today im gonna kick it out by reviewing this beautiful little plate i just bought in spacehall honda, a vinyl shop in berlin. it was released by naked (music) and its a single of Central Living, entitled Everyday, previously contained in the album nude dimensions 3 also by naked music.
what? dont know these artists? then whaddoyoudoin lookin at me for? i dont have the answer on my forehead. go move your ass and open the world wide world of internet. dont tell me you dont know internet, get out of the freakin cave and see the world once in a while, encinoman!
right, ok ok, ill fill you in a little bit

a single like these just shows how encompassing naked music are and how overwhelmingly cool their artists are. why did i say that? in this single plate there are 4 tracks (of course all are the song "everyday") that is not only different but each earns its title of word the ultra cool, not just cool (yeah i like the world ultra cool, sounds like refrigerator advertisement isnt it?). each belongs to different classes of deep house, but all still under the big umbrella of naked and, i know naked, nothing would be in a naked release unless it has passed the naked’s brain-bleedingly unimaginably-high cool standard.

the one compiled in nude dimension 3, the track produced by crazy penis (it is subsequently called naked penis mix), instilled itself a mid tempo, moderately deep kick drums, more appropriate for the serious deep house heads who needs to dance and let off steam. the deepness of this track, characterized by funky emphasized bass line, heavily ambience vocal, and jazzy synth playing, im affraid most suitably called for the kind of deep house maniac that has the ability to exageratingly move and dance with only minimum, but deep, tempo, just like this song has. for those who are not deep house heads, will find it pretty difficult to address yourself toward this song, it wont exactly drives you to hands-in-the-air situation, but its certainly gives you a lot more and deeper energy for just spending it by a simple sway of the head during sitting down.
the second track in side b, the mix from Sven van Hees, is a whole different world presented by the genius in naked music records. this version mainly characterized by the funky break beat of a soft jazz drum playing and layered by the repeating moderately volumed but funky bass loop. this attribute undoubtedly creates a certain intimate but kinky atmosphere. rather than in the clubs, i would think this one is most appropriate for a late night bedroom usage only, perhaps accompanying a naughty and sexy dancing while you unbuttoned his or her shirt, or even, if you feel like, for stripteasing with your loved one,.. that would certainly kicked some beautiful asses!

now, let see whats on side a, the first track, a1, a mix by bougie solitaire (who brings superficial on nude dimension 2) is a journey to disco age, tainted with a flavor of ambience. the strummin’ Nile Rodger’s Chic’s style guitar playing is one of the important recipe for music at that age, added with the simple structure of disco song (verse direct to chorus without second verse) complete this song even more. for this one, club use only buddy, get your high heels on your feet and start pumpin high up in the air.
the last track, brought by the original central living, which is actually just another name for dave warrin (sneaky fucker dont ya think these djs?), shows up pretty much how much the other remixing artists has changed the song from this original version. the originial has the tempo like the naked penis version, thats why also deeper than the rest. while seems lack of the bass or rhythym enhancement like the remixes, this track just delivers the pure raw deep house how it supposed to be, uncontaminated with too many disco or brazillian (like the sven van hees version). it is just steady pumpin beat of moderately kick drums, hihat and snare drums, deep heavy and exposed funky bass guitar, a swirling phase-effected synth sounds over it and on top of it all the smooth, sexy seductive vocal that simply runs between verse to chorus over and over again. so pure, so raw, such a delight to consume..

the rating for this album is 4,5 stars. why not 5? if it has more tracks it will certainly be. ok, its been a pleasure to share this to you, i feel like i wanna sleep now and have a good dream.

how close are you with your music, i wanna ask you? i mean how togetherly interacting are you with your music? has anyone ever question anything like this to you before?…..deeply conscious, i would say nobody and i guess no one would ever do if i don’t. so i guess ill take this privilege of being the first one to ask you then…..how close are you?
im sorry i had to take you to this level of philosophy already in early paragraphs of this blog but its MY blog anyway and my standard assumption already is YOU, the one who read this, has comprehend my ridiculously beyond-normal fondness to music AND yourself has acquired pretty much, if not the same, some sort of, any sort of, appreciation to music itself, and thats why you take the trouble to read this blog and album review right?!? right……
so i ask you one more time, how close are you with your music? what importance has it become in your life? what kind of space has it occupy in your life? has it occupy any at all? what kind of beings has it become in your life? sounds non sense? well not to me…
the fact that music is, not philosophically, physically (hey i studied physics alright?!), some sort of energy that is spread through our physical universe through whatever engineering marvelousity  you wanna mention (be it loudspeaker, cd player, turntable, whatever), concretized the fact that it is sending something to us (well actually the musician is sending something to us). but what it is that is being sent is truly the greatest mystery ever bedazzled me. i believe that under the mere sound wave that is playing and beautifully accepted by our senses there are something mystical and almighty… why do i think so? then answer this, why sometimes music makes me sad? why sometimes music makes me happy? why sometimes music makes me all of a sudden move and smile inevitably? why sometimes music makes me take a long deep breath and makes me start thinking about my whereabouts in this life and all other really fundamental things? why does music drops or spur my heartbeat suddenly? why… does music.. creates the most interesting phenomena to my body?
does it contain some sort of secret code that told my body what to do, told my heart what to feel?
departing from the idea that our body is a receiver of energy and the musician is the transmitter of that energy, and the music is the energy itself do not explain what is this energy exactly and why does it create funny conditions in my body when i hear it..
it is as if, during recording, the musician’s state of heart, manifested in the works he produced and represented by whatever signals or symbols that is, is transferred peculiarly into the recording mechanism, and got carried far far away through so many different process until it finally arrive to the listeners sense, and after the senses, the music re-form itself again into some divine form that is ONLY recognized by our heart, and influence it. now what is truly amazing to me is, whether you realize it or not, its ability to totally command the current state of our heart… this extraordinary fact proves that music, as convicted as only a mere superpositions of listenable sound waves, has in fact reach the point of highest authority over us as human beings, as it has succeded to control our heart, the most intangible and the divinally God-given core of our existence in this universe.

since it is this divine ability that i have taste in music, carved through time, i had somewhat acquire this sensitivity that seems to have captivate me and from where i could no longer exit. i have simply addicted by it and therefore feels the effect is getting strong as i spend the time of my life with the music. it has become an inseparable entity in this little space and time i had acquire in this universe.
to me, the right music speaks and can undeniably control the present state of my feeling. it is an energy that has grasped the very core of my soul and take command on it. at times it want to squeeze it hard to make it stressed and anxious to let the steam go off by chilling myself out, at other times it want to loosen its grip to make me feel free and unconstrained for dancing.
maybe thats why i love music so much, for its ability to speak an un-understandable language to my heart and change it for the sake of giving me just a little bit of glimpse to a more colourful world of mine. for this, i thank you God..

and for the same reason also, there exist in me an irresistible urge to share the happiness and excitement ive had all this time to music. how many times have i tried to verbally speak about the greatness of certain music or another to a person or a collection of persons? how many times have i tried to record a cassette or cd to a person just to try to open up just a little bit of their senses that there are better far more moving music out there than MTV? how many times have i deliberately arrange the music playlist inside my car so that the person who happens to go along on a ride in my car would open his minds up and join along to the excitement of the music i love? how many times have i passionately describe how great a music is in this blog? how many? how many times already?….
lastly, i just wanna say that at the end of the day this whole music reviewing thing and sharing the passion, the joy and the excitement of the music i love to friends, people, or anybody, is just two sides of the same coin…..

sunday, 10 april 2005

hmmm just came home again for the second time today. i was supposed to meet some of the guys from masjid today to do some, believe it or not, NGAJI! hahaha i know you must’ve think i am a complete hipocrit or what? well, life indeed brings many surprises my friends, even though i AM such a typical stereotype for the followers of satan, but really, how many times have you try to stereotyped people but fail? a lot right? now take it in a different way, digest this : everybody is different! and that’s including me, no matter how i fell in love with music and seems to worship it more than anything, i do worship something more divine, more matters than any other things in this world, yeah, the Guy who gives me the pleasure to experience the music itself, dear all forgiving GOD….
now before you start thinking funny about me, i just wanna make something clear here that i am a faithful and strict moslem guy =P. i mean i do ngaji in a satanic city like this man, whaddoyou expect?? +P……hehehehe hehehehe hahahahahaha yeaaah right, i just follow this whole ngaji thing just once and even worse i attended it because my friend trick me by saying that we were just gonna have a big dinner in a friend’s house and nothing else..
well as the story goes, it turned out that many of the people that were supposed to come to my friends house werent there at all, only me and my newly acquainted friend, Wawan (i guess that makes me the best Moslem of the group eh =P), so eventually i got home again and suddenly found the necessary urge to write this down.

yum yum yum….mm…lets see what cd would i like to review today…i think this new cd i just bought will be good since it brings up so many memories. ok, it is titled Luxury House for an exciting sunset in miami…

I am smiling right now, happy, why? because this cd has gone pretty way back yeah, and it feels good to have this cd again in my hand since the last time was not exactly mine but my brother’s.

ok ill tell you a little bit about the story alright? it was maybe september 2001, i just moved my residence from my old kos2an in Sumurbandung in Bandung (near ITB, where i used to go to college) to another kos2an, which is also near ITB but slightly further, called Sekartanjung, its address was Cisitu Indah II no A4. Well, it is located in this (was) village near ITB called cisitu. Cisitu is like synonymous with kos2an, everybody went to live there, so expect the whole society of ITB hanging down the road every morning in Cisitu, waiting to get a share of the ANGKOT. I mean everybody there no matter what they do, as long as they have a house in cisitu, theyll rent at least one of them for kos2an, not bad right, you can get minimum 150rb (at least at my time) to maybe 1 juta per room also available.
the house where i live in is nice, its not an old type of kos2an you might expect, where there lives the family and ibu kosnya, nope, nothing like that, this is a full fledged building dedicated for renting and the business of kos2an. its like a small appartment really but with share kitchen. the room that i occupy is not terribly big, just 3×5 (yeah just like this one in Berlin), but thats pretty enough, what really matter at the time was hot water, parking space (for my car of course), and the situation (read: the locals) of the kosan.
ok, so then, it was september, i just moved maybe for over one month. at one of my trip home (i did it every once in a month maybe), i stopped by at uda’s place (my brother - FYI padangnese called their brothers UDA) and spotted right away his new collection of lounge cds. ok let me tell you a little bit of information about my bro. he is a travellin man, a frequent flyer, he travels a lot, he got a lot of money, and just one glimpse of him, youll realize that his taste, money, and lifestyle is above average. far before jakarta has a fever of what so called the Buddha-Bar or chill out fever (where now the term become so freakin popular i get sick of it), he already got the first cds man, directly from paris. let me tell you even now, buddha bar cds each cost somewhat above 300rb, and thats a lot for most indonesians for a piece of plastic like that. i remember, my brother in law, Galih, told me how cool his cd was at the time (btw Galih is the brother of the wife of my brother - aha its getting complicated now isnt it?, and he stayed at the same house with my brother), and at that time i was just learning about ministry of sound scene in UK but has totally delve myself into the acid jazz scene. when i heard him say that, i got really interested, and finally studied the area of lounge and guess what pretty much stuck till now and even developed.
alright enough about my bro, then ill continue with my story. so on that particular homecoming i came to his house to meet up and attented directly to his growing collection of lounge cds (the shit is those cds dont cost really much for him, while me i gotta work or save my ass off to collect them….yes, the world is indeed unfair), the collection i think was filed in this 60 cd capacity cd case, and the early part of them are filled up. so without hesitation as a brother i asked him directly, hey da, can i borrow this to rip? as soon as im finished ill give it over immediately.. and yeah you know the answer right?
so i never get to listen most of them while in jakarta because i never take too long of a vacation in jakarta, usually 1 or 2 days in weekends only, simply because i had to go back to college on mondays. so i started to listen to them in full attention in bandung, in my kos room. tell you something man, i think that room almost thought to be some sort of club by the other kids in the kosan, i couldnt think why not though since most of things blaring from the loudspeaker of my room were always anything ranging from house to lounge to chill and loud. i listen many new types of shit in that cd collection, but one that is pretty unforgettable is this cd im listening right now in my room in berlin, which were gonna review that is.
its called Luxury House for An Exciting Sunset in Miami (now how could a name be more tempting than that). 
the cd was printed by this beautiful picture of a beach (i didnt see the cover because i got the cd in the cd case remember?), the picture shows a coast complete with the coconut trees and a line of horizon stretching in the middle, the picture time was sunset so imagine a golden orange color filling the whole palette of color. the water was just like thousand tiny drops of golden coin, gradualing between gold and light blue. for me, it was just like shot me directly to this miami beach, chillin out, enjoying the beach where the sand and the sun are all at your mercy.it was a beautiful feeling to be able to hold it down in your hand and having the anxiety to expect what sort of music would be playing from a cd named luxury house for an exciting sunset in miami… 

it turned out to be monumental..

first of all the cd housed some of the most important tracks of 2001, hold on you may know this, cada vez from negrocan, the time is now by moloko (but this one is a can 7 mix). cada vez hold to be the pivot point that marks the entrance of the cd into the house territory. previously though as we shall see the cd revolves around what so called a chill house, a laid back house, with jazzy traces, and ambient attribute
ok, the cd start with a beautiful intro. this intro is actually the intro to second track, which is phenomenal, that is the francesco diaz version of i say a little prayer for you. this version, sung by karl frierson, is one of the single i would really like to have. not only its a rendition of a very famouos track, but everyone including my friend Iren that heard this track were like kicked out when listening to this mix. putting it as the very first track is also the perfect strategy to attract people. the vocoder filtered back vocal, the re-arranged-resulting-funkier bass sequence, the heavy vocal of karl frierson, the minimalistly clean solo guitar playing on the top layer, all become the essential element that puts this track out of the crowd, and last but not least its ingenious entrance straight into the heart of the time is now (moloko).
as soon as moloko enters, i really feel like turning the volume up, but i cant can i? its past 9 o’clock and the walls between my room and the next room are not exactly like the walls of fort knox.
moloko immediately creates such a party atmosphere but not in a hands-pumpin-in-the-air way, more like in a head-swaying way. since the catchiness of verse, its continuation into the chorus is very recognizeable. vocal of roisin murphy, singer of moloko, is just such that created lightness in the air, i would call it the astrud gilberto type, and hey maybe the indie pop singer type (see moonpools and caterpillars), its spirit of childishness and innocence in the vocal are essentially the same in all of them.
the thing about deep house again is the losing of its heavy kick drum as part of the rhythm and the more intensively become of the bass volume. this recipe reduces the heaviness of house and brings the funk back into the main stage, together they would provide a medium for people who are just simply want to chill but also dance. this whole album, either each artists realize it or not, is standing on these principles.
the third track was called recover by satin souls, its so good (i know i know, you must be thinking i have so many things i termed good, but well to be honest it is like that. i do have so many favorite tracks, to judge one of them as the ultimate good is merely impossible not only because each of them swings me in a different way, but also because they are not competing one another, they are contributing one another, in how each of them would fit into a specific situation of my life. this track is a total deep house mayhem…
two succeding tracks are children of the ghetto by planete noire and elevator by jaffa remixed by masters at work (the legendary kenny dope label and production team). both contributions are of the same quality with satin souls, so so far, a heaven of deep house tunes.
next track, is an early Blue 6 track, pure. this track is the milestone of deep house i must say, provide the initial definition for the early deep house-ers on how exactly to produce a kick ass deep house track, if the deep house connoiseurs wants to make a listening booth dedicated for only one deep house song, then this song would be it.
following are (who?) keeps changing your mind? by the south street players. i remember i used to play this from time to time on the backstage show on monday night on hard rock fm bandung. hahahhaha wicked isnt it? hard rock fm has crossed the territories of deep house on my hand brother! the only problem is no one realizes it but me..i just thought sometimes i feel so freakin far ahead of people in bandung.. =(
after south street players come cada vez. a regular track in normal clubs perhaps, bc bar definitely. i remember listening to this under their resident dj, dj ata something i forgot. its appearance on this cd also reminds me of my hed kandi cd: disco kandi 2, which a collection of raw and powerful house tracks. in this cd, as i said, cada vez marks the turn around of the cd into disco house realm. nevertheless, cada vez is such a ass mover.
next track do it to it by michelle narine is a bit donna summer-like, but of course deep-efied by means of lowering the kick drums range, added vocal effect, and some solo looping synth sounds modified with phase effect.
the 11th track crack city by chevalier proposes some very heavy raw funk like some of those in the old police television series in the 70s. there a sense of filter disco also in this track which, when combined, form the equation : funk + filter = fantastic =P
dj kurtis by its track let go fill the next position. mmmm its fine, its also filter house or filter disco if you will, its a little bit boring compared to the others. possibly because its structures are such a standard house lack the creativity of jazz normally found in a more intellectual deep house stuff.
finally the last track before outro, the martello bros with remember. fine track, with kinky synth loops, but maybe could brought you down with boredom a little bit, but hey, theres something interesting here, theres a vocal speech in the middle, ohohoho hahaha this makes it cool. the person talkin is this black mama, jivin with her characteristic american black city-people dialect. the surprising thing is how the impact of the sampling of this small talk to the whole song, it takes people attention i guess, in a good way, and it kinda pre-programmed i think, how to end some phrases at the same time the loop ends. anyhow it creates a above standard track.
now, its finished, theres my fourth review. how much i would give to this cd? hmm 5, out of….5. too much? no hell way, this cd worth every crown of those stars. the flow, the selection, the mix, simply put, awesome, now the question is…..recalling the rarity of this cd, i asked myself, how are YOU going to listen it? oh well, see ya on the next review.

sunday, 10 april 2005

its a bright morning today. giving a sense of hope and passing energy to the sleepers. Berlin is still sleeping i guess, its 7 o’clock in the morning, this is equivalent to 5 am in indonesia, and hellooo its sunday.
so what am i doing at this kind of time, boggling with my computer writing this on the notepad? well, i could give you a long detailed explanation why which may include hunger, postponed before-bed toothbrushing, etc but to make it short, i JUST feel like it..
anyway theres enough energy in the air to write some reviews in my blog.

now, for those of you who kinda just passing through that sentence, you might well a little bit confused..reviews in a blog?? since when a blog became a collection of reviews??…ok…ehem…..i also guess it need a second explanation just about now…
look i know all of you guys are probably drooling over the prospect of reading my life story in this blog (what a looser! get a life man), but unfortunately you wont! well i can tell you straight away now that you wont see strings of passages devoted entirely about my life (why? because i dont like to make it, capiche?! ), what you will see instead are strings of passages of other finer things in life, that is, my music. it will be the central focal point of the discussion in this blog. that enough said, then..maybe, interspersed by it, ill have a go at explaining my everyday life and my ideas.
relax, you wont lose me even one second by reading this music stuff, because my music is plain simply is me, cant be separated, so my final advice is just consider yourself browsing a review of albums with the added extra bonus of understanding the reviewers life, which in this case, ME.

right now lets go to what i really interested about: this plate that im listening right now. just as i writing this, its getting hotter already. as expected the sun’s position has gone up a couple of degrees more from where im sitting right now.

the plate name is Music & Wine/All I Need, unreleased remixes by Blue 6, a Naked Music artists (yummmyyy!)
tracklisting:
A1. Music & Wine (Speakeasy 3000! mix)
A2. Music & Wine (Satin Souls remix)
B1. All I Need (Jimpster remix)
B2. All I Need (Album Version)

second track of the side a of this plate has just begin, my favorite track that is. as a regular club oriented plate, this one started with a medium length drum sequence on the front. immediately it starts this lick of effect-ed bass guitar that sounds a bit high pass filtered off, i mean the bass kinda loses its bottom frequencies, making it a bit un-heavy and rather playful type, just like a french house/electro songs (Benjamin Diamond, Stardust, Daft Punk). right after it, a layer of organ arrangements that is subtle enough to create an ambience for this song, this kind of ambience is a traditional naked music requirements, which nonetheless undiverted from their very intention of supplying smooth, deep house to the local folks inside your household.

then…aha, this is such a suprise, a synthesizer sounds that are just kinky, 80s like, playing this repeatingly pressed chord as if the musician’s finger are jammin’ and kiddin’ on top of the keyboard keys. the synth sounds sequence form the breakbeats of the song, its layered up unevenly over the entire foundating rhythm thus creating a sense of breaks, yup imagine that, you can invent breaks in the song not only by the drums, dawg! exactly the reason why this is such an intelligent form of house.
and the vocals voice, uuuhh, it reminds me the first time i heard naked music records (which i already forgot when, seems like long time ago), the song called always by Lisa Shaw, it was banging on my brother’s stereo (he’s a cool guy aint it for havin’ those kind of music far before everyone else). the songs, specifically the bass, is soooo deeeep man, i feel full throttled funk deep-efied, extended low frequency bass type of thing, and then comes the voice of ms. shaw. it was HEAVENLY… it was a kind butter smooth but heavy voice, for a second, i almost thought i hear her had an orgasm, it was recorded with a certain chamber recording arrangements which, added to the initial voice characteristics, makes you feel like an angel is speaking from the sky, it was sexy and seductive and lustful literally…, as good like any woman askin’ for a good make out. i can never forget that song implication on me, till i became this naked music knobhead i am now. And its no different sense with this girl on this record, Catherine Russell, the smooth buttery voice she has, like her counterpart - Lisa Shaw, hallmarked the naked sounds even further.

lets not forget the man behind all this alright, Vincenzo Ragone aka Satin Souls. as if whole those compliments previously not enough, he didnt forget to put the bridge to the final kick ass chorus (or i also like to say it "floating" time) well enough to make people go and pump their fist in the air when they were initially just static on a couch on a lounge. The musical implication of such a bridge like this cannot be underestimated, the dance music lovers knew this very well, a good bridge captures attention, makes people impended, literally hold their breath and wait, and basicly drives people, when they are not, back to what really matters, the music.
endly, this track is superb, deep house founding fathers at work!

lets take a look at music and wine, the Speakeasy remix. i wont take too long at this track, because im already exhausted by the first one. this song unlike previously, build the ambience at the very start, with mystical stringy sustained synth gradually building from the front together with the drum loop (and a little break once in a while, maybe every 4 bar). after the intro, the buildup was immediately combined with an additional sounds started creating the core of the song, drums get emphasized, slappin’ funky bass, vocals, also with Catherine Russell of course, combined into one which eventually formed a song a bit more energenetic but more mystical and ambient that the previous one (the satin soul remix are more kinky and french house-y remember?). this version of music and wine i think one of its most indispensible version, they shouldve put this version in Sex and the City.
to put it simply, this track is also indispensible.

now, regarding the side B, unfortunately i wont discuss them here, since they are already on other albums which is the blue six album which i had also had and the bare essential vol. 2

all these reviewing thing makes me wonder, wouldnt i want to make a structure out of it? out of reviewing? i mean what are you up to anyway i asked myself? are you going to influence people’s minds to buy this or what? well if it is, then make structure! what will be the content of each review? maybe band members names, maybe year of release, maybe track after track review, maybe label, maybe….maybe…..

maybe…….

NOT!!!!!!!!

hell, i did all this just to make me feel good, so that i can practice my writing capability, so that i can share my excitement in life to….WHOEVER! whoever had the time to read this, then maybe maybe i might have an intention of influencing people for an album. so forget about that shitty structures! i do what i wanna do! how i do it! and i did it MY way. ill make the necessary writing so that people can still digest what im saying, but bordering myself and the fun i had for myself for the sake of people who in fact i dont see or meet or probably even care about my blog?? yeah right!!

right, now, lets move on to our next album, CPEN, a silly name abbreviated from the name of its founder Chris Penn. It is titled Freestyle Mechanic. this band is an old hands in acid jazz scene but i think it finally evolves into this sort of deep house business. first find this band on an old Instinct Records album, entitled if im not mistaken New Voices, maybe year 1997, but i forget whether its volume 2 or 3, i think 2. it has a cool track on that album. the next reconnaisance was on the divine album Carte Blanche 2 (basicly every carte blanche album by naked music is divine =)). and there it was, the track Silver Surfer that im listening right now, supa-funk brotha!!
such an intensive basslines, with a break-beating drum, and that trumpet solo that is just perfect. i mean perfect because it mix verywell with the intensively busy rhythm, providing such a serene but hectic atmospheric. and i say to myself, this is truly a deep house song, that was born to serve those busy people who, despite their hecticness, still manage to enjoy and takes the romanticism of that hecticness as a perfect reason to go into what truly appropriately theirs.. the lounge.

these kinds of song has produced such a strange atmosphear.. it is both active and passive, it is both energetic and chill, it is both sober and high,
and all these reminds me of how those people in the city works, they are extremely busy at daytime but yet they also chill afterhours, kinda trying to reach a balance between those two, just like this song..

silver surfer also has that programmed percusive instrument sounds somewhat like gamelan, funny, because hearing those, i am reminded by the sea, the reverberance the instrument produced create a sense like it was sounded from the bottom of the sea. this is the element that produce the serenity i told you before, and even mystical. hmmm, i guess thats why chriss penn called this track silver surfer.. this track could very well be the selling point of this whole album, but okay, lets listen to another track..

….hmmmm…..uhummmm………..uhummmm…….

track 2 is also good!! oh yeah i just remember for you guys who doesnt like instrumental then i believe this review or probably this whole blog is not for you! why? because the whole CPEN is instrumental and i like instrumental, numbhead!
right track 2 is called formaldehyde side. its properly arranged, properly programmed with all those interesting synthesized sounds. makes you wonder how long this guy had to tweak his freakin synthesizer to get a feel of these sounds and match them to which songs. phewh thats djs life! anyway, he still puts in breakbeats here but slower tempo more like cafe del mar stuff, i love it, the ambience is very strong here, the reverberance of the synth sounds are even stronger, sounds really like under the sea or maybe inside your mother’s womb. the trace of funk is everywhere. yep i love it when he suddenly turn off one of the hihats and kick drums, its like those moments in the dancefloor where suddenly there’s the "floating" time before the next chorus, beautiful. this guy is sickly good!
track 5 : dr. sparkle’s theme shots back to 30 years ago, to the funk brothers age! and its a nice try….with heavy, rollin’ and slappin’ bassline, chirping guitar like Nile Rodgers of Chic (its works are Donna Summer, Sister Sledge, and of course Chic) added with a bit of  wah wah sound on it, and um…hahaha.. yep sampling of the brothers jivin’ and talkin’, yeaah! sure make it feels like your being brought back to the 70s, anyway where did i left my wheelshoes? unfortunately though your nostalgia wont be too long, because the wave of boredom will bring you back to the 21century. beside the raw funk-ness of the song, the progression is too minimal and it makes it pretty dull.
the rest of tracks started to lose sharpness compared to silver sufer. maybe he just ran out of it..the creative juice! the programming started to sound too minimal, with alltofamiliar synth sounds, and simply…boring. the feel of break drums still exists and this funk characteristics are the only ones holding these tracks from falling into the valley of the dull and ugly songs. the last tracks is totally chill out, maybe even depressed kind of way, like Lux in the Cafe del Mar or like Afterlife without remix. nice if sometimes you feel like killing yourself slowly..
right, all in all, id like to give this album a 3 stars out of 5. silver surfer however is a gem, and an exception to these stars, i dont hesitate for a 5 stars for this track. salute to chris penn.

alright, thats my second review, what do you think? i bet you dont have the slightest clue of what CPEN is all about! =P well i have said all the keywords : deep house, carte blanche, naked music, chris penn, all you gotta do now is just find this guy on the google and listen to it maybe in amazon or something else, and prove my review, easy right?

how do you write actually a music review? i mean how do you expect people to know actually what are you talking about when they dont hear it? using high literary musical phrases dont help, in fact it can develop a sense of non sense, or even snobbishness. using a reference to other songs might help though, but only as much as the reader has any experience with the referred reference. then how?
the answer is i dunno. but yet i still wanna try it.. for what? the answer is for me, not for you, im sorry for the egoistical intention but in fact this is exactly the reason im writing this blog, not for the reader but for developing my writing capability.
i mean, about blogs, who will read them anyway? i mean people who actually read people’s blog everyday is exactly the people who got no life. and i dont want that kind of people read my blogs. and i dont expect there are any anyway.
but i will write. just to express my thoughts. and might share the passion, the excitement, the boiling adrenaline everytime i hear a good song or got new cds or plates.

if you happen to read this, just read it for the shake of maybe literary pleasure only, or perhaps even better for the music and ideas that i will propose. but of course if you wanna go further and read the journey of my life in this blog time after time, i say to you : be my sweet beautiful ass guest! i have to remind you though, due to the egoistical reasons, this blog will survive as long as i got the ache for it, and will follow no rules of writing of whatsoever, it will answer only to my will and passion for talking about anything and any direction i wanted at any time, so dont surprise for the unexpected twists and turns, because when i suddenly change the topic, thats because i god damned feel like it.
dont get offended, love you!

i consider myself, and call myself from this point forward, a deep house observer, the collector freak, the orgasm-out-of-new-cd man, the unstable thinker, and the critic-judge-commentator-rolled into one.

saturday, 9 april 05
alright, this is a beautiful day, for what reason? the ebay-bought cd came today, together with…guess? the ebay-bought plate =)_. the cd is the painstakingly rare moonpools and catterpillars’s lucky dumpling, while the plate is a fresh pressing of blue six’s unreleased remixes of music and wine and all i need.
both records are, as expected, are beautiful. ok, what is beautiful? or beautiful to what certain level? good question, im trying to figure out the answer now. as a former music director and a former freelance lecturer on music genres, to tell you the truth, the former questions are really questioning my reputation if i didnt answer it.
ok well, this may sound like a f**kin amazon.com review, but what the hell, i said it may, and it also may not..
who wo wo wo, before i start reviewing, ive got a certain ideas i wanna share about this, what if?….what if i review it from a couple of different point of view? aha, interesting isn’t it? i mean why dont i review it as, let’s say, a freakin’ pessimist, introvert, unpassionate person, and one more as an optimistic, extrovert, passionate person. this would be an interesting psychology practice wouldnt you think? (shit, im talking to an imaginary person now!). will this turn me into TWO FACE? i dunno lets try

lucky dumpling - moonpools and catterpillars (1995)
(pes.)
the only freakin good song of this album is only the track soon
(opt.)
the track beside soon is not quite catchy as soon, although hear and ren are getting close. but yet they still covered in the same boundary of pop, which grasping the spirit of innocence, fun in it, will remain to be a listenable list of songs (arent i a cruel person? listenable?? =)). i think thats the power of pop anyway. oh for your information, moonpools and caterpillars are what so called an indie pop band, some even say they are a dream pop, some others say they are twee pop, what are the differences with these names anyway? well not much, and a band CAN be called by these names simultaneously, because the humans in the band are not a static creature are they, sometimes the wanna be really light and with stringy arrangements on their songs, so then come into being a dream pop band, sometimes they want a more rauncy Do It Yourself (DIY) sound, the becomes of them a indie pop band, sometimes they want just acoustical guitaristic arrangements, so then exists them as jangle pop.
anyhow it might be, that is just terms, if you wanna know the reference meaning of it, i suggest you look at this site : www.allmusicguide.com. its a comprehensive site, destined for the learners of the development of music, just like me=).

okay lets get back to the sentence….mmm….the power of pop, right! (see above). yeah thats the power of pop, with its simple structures, catchy melody requirements, and its characteristics rock-ish arrangements, they can really live up to their name and be as light and easily digested as these poppish people wannabe.

if pop were a kid, it maybe raised with a lot of love from its family. the kid in pop never really disappear, its still in it, no matter what, the innocence, the fun making, and, with it, the energy that it took from its brother rock n roll. it grew up as a sweet kid, who capable nothing sort of destruction or anger, it may be angry though but its ways are somewhat more of like dismal or melancholy.

the first track: hear are catchy and really exciting. the second track, is a bit more angry than the first, with a kick chorus seeming like wanna kick the listener out of the cozy status quo in the verse, or like the singer of the band wanna kick the object of the song in the ass so hard because had done her wrong. In the end of the track they go to this repeated kick drum and cymbal banging that even strongly suggest the rebel feel of the band that wanna give the final punch to whoever theyre singing to before the song ends. Whereas the heart throbbing song in this compilation, soon, is a melancholy track. the chorus lyric is swearing at you, such a beautiful chorus. and it has a great chord progression in the beginning too, great if you wanna go singing this song acoustically with a guitar, to a loved one maybe, most people will get infected once you play the first few bars. it remind me of who i know sings this song a lot, its my friend astrid, wherever she is now.

if you listen to moonpools songs, you gotta wonder, where did they find this singer? her sound is….m…not vibrato, not sopran, or alto, or whatever, its actually not even worthy to be called a melodius, its more like flat, very limited frequency range, if you may. but it mixes very well with the genres. the voice, so distinctive, provide the songs with the innocence, the virginity pop has, the childish playful spirit, or the youngsters rebel. i even think for a while maybe the very reason of forming this band is the discovery of this singer. this kind of leftfield voices, is the ones that usually sticks to your mind afterwards. think cardigans! btw her name is Kimi.

the succeding tracks basicly are just trying to get that catchiness spirit instilled in its brothers in the track 1,2,3. some exceptions are track 5, colossal youth. i could sense a sense of playful experimentation, or if im being cruel,they are just making "fillers", you know that? those songs just to fill the songs quota in an album, so doesnt really matter much the quality. but hey, dont be mistaken, if they play these songs in front of you live, i could assure you, the fast or slow ones, in fact any of them, will move you. thats why finally about this album i said, overall their songs is good (3 stars), catchiness exists, the fun exists, truly a beautiful contribution to the great name of their genre.

so how about that? how about my first review? is the strategy of being pessimist and optimist works? i think not really. i think i made a pretty good review though, im being honest thats for sure. to tell you the truth there so many things to said about that album, since i am such a talker =) but hey, theres still a lot more other album to speak about ok?

hehehe i know some of my friend, IF they see this blog, would probably be angry, especially who knows this album well, like my operator friend andri in my old HRFM office, he would probably erupted seeing i only give a mediocre value for this album, kikikik.

by the way, the way the guitarist strum the guitar in track 11 Koo Koo Koo sounds like deep blue something, which again, sounds like u2 in the beginning of where the streets have no name. the drum rolls in the ending of this songs also very exciting, phewh when can i see them in concert? i guess never huh since this band is probably non-existent now….

to make this review easier for you, i have put pictures of the album, and the albums forthcoming.