Having read as many reviews as I can stand about Goldfrapp’s latest album, I have still not come any closer to figuring out if I actually like it or not. I’ve only heard bits and bobs of Felt Mountain and started listening to Goldfrapp in earnest with 2002’s Black Cherry, so maybe I expect a bit more edge and a bit more weirdness from Alison and Will—fewer sunkissed glamour photo shoots like the ones commissioned for Seventh Tree, and more half-horse electroglam cutouts. When your overriding vision of Goldfrapp involves Alison Goldfrapp on stage at Glastonbury wearing tall leather boots and a horse’s tail, abusing a portable theremin as though she were wearing a strap-on, readjusting to Seventh Tree’s far less carnivalesque atmosphere can take some time.

About that cover: it looks like someone took the same aesthetic from Beth Orton’s Daybreaker and recast it in Sherwood Forest. Somewhat fitting in that Orton took a similar low-key chillout approach to her most recent album, 2006’s Comfort of Strangers, though Orton threw away the electronics completely. Goldfrapp is infinitely more successful in that Seventh Tree remains interesting even in its most serene moments. It even approaches the electro sound perfected on Black Cherry and revisited on Supernature at times, though Alison’s old seductive persona never makes an appearance even on relatively bleep-heavy tracks like “Happiness.”

But for the most part, Seventh Tree remains a bit of a cipher—I’m still on the fence. Goldfrapp’s previous formula had worn thin after just two albums, so at least it’s not an even duller version of Supernature. And so far, the new album has proven difficult to dismiss outright. It just requires a lot of my attention to appreciate some aspects of the album; otherwise critic favourites like “A & E” and “Caravan Girl” go in one ear and out the other to little effect.

I guess it’s kind of an internet joke now that if you are at all associated with anime, there’s a devoted group of followers waiting to worship you. And so it is with Yoko Kanno, a Japanese composer that you’ve probably never heard of unless you love Ghost in the Shell, Escaflowne, Macross Plus, or any of a dizzying array of anime and video game works she’s composed music for, in which case you’ll almost certainly recognize a song or two of hers. Though she’s worked on several non-soundtrack music projects and even played in a couple of pop bands, Kanno continues to be known best for her soundtrack work.

“Cyberbird,” from the second Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex soundtrack, is one of her better known tracks, and served as my introduction to Kanno’s work. Gorgeous strings backed by a propulsive backbeat serve as a launching pad for the angelic female vocals of Gabriela Robin, a frequent Kanno collaborator (or doppelganger, depending on who you talk to). As an aural backdrop to a action-packed helicopter chase scene, it’s an inspired choice. As an original composition, it’s perhaps a bit too inspired.

The second season of Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, for which “Cyberbird” was composed, first aired in 2004. Back in 1998, Hooverphonic put out their breakthrough second album, Blue Wonder Power Milk. The wonderful lead-off track is a little number called “Battersea,” a spirited drum’n'bass ride through the stratosphere. And if you Google the terms “battersea” and “cyberbird”, like I did on a whim, you’ll find a bunch of people who’ve all noticed the exact same thing I have: the two songs sound similar. Very similar. (I’ve reposted “Battersea” for comparison.)

It turns out Kanno begs, borrows and steals from a lot of sources, at least in the eyes of some; this forum thread lists a number of similarities, inspirations, and possibly outright thefts of other people’s material. I haven’t heard most of the songs mentioned, but at least a few of the similarities check out: “Where Does This Ocean Go?” definitely shares a certain resemblance to Bjork’s “Hyperballad”, and “Face On” sounds like a rock-inflected remix of Craig Armstrong’s “Finding Beauty”.

What’s it all mean? Not sure, exactly—it doesn’t seem like anyone’s bothered to sue her for plagiarism, though some of these cases sound worse than, say, Elastica’s “Connection” versus Wire’s “Three Girl Rhumba.” (Elastica narrowly avoided the courts by settling with Wire’s publishers in that case; they also had to settle a case with the Stranglers for another song on their debut.) And some of the songs on the list don’t seem to match up particularly well to their supposed sources, like “Call Me, Call Me” versus the Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.” I suppose the best likely outcome is curious individuals discover the source material upon which some of Kanno’s work is based, and appreciate the new artists they find as a result. In which case, if you liked “Cyberbird,” may I humbly suggest you pick up a couple of Hooverphonic CDs?

Another left-field track: as far as anyone seems to know, Shimpei doesn’t exist except as the creator of this single track. There are a couple of Japanese artists who happen to have the word Shimpei in their name, but I don’t think they’re the same. Whoever Shimpei is, they created this one track for a music rhythm game called Pop’n Music that seems to have only been released in Japan, but must be wildly popular because there are sixteen versions of it so far. Really the only other hint available to you in the music file is the presence of farm animals—a strangely reassuring and recurring theme when it comes to Japanese game music (also see We Love Katamari’s “Scorching Savanna“).

Um, so that’s it for today. I have no idea where to point you if you want more of the same, or more information on the artist, or even how you can get more barnyard beats. If anyone DOES know where to get more barnyard beats, though, I’m thinking we could kickstart this genre, put out a compilation, get the kids riled up. The Saturday-morning cartoon meets utopian grassroots agriculture aesthetic is one that could use more hit singles, no?

Some things simply fall into your lap unbidden, and make an impression even without the benefit of context. “Pitch Control” is one of those songs for me. Perhaps because of the not-too-recent resurgence of teutonic influences in electronic music, “Pitch Control” sounds pretty current to these ears—which is why it was surprising to discover the track was actually produced in 1982 by some of krautrock’s lesser-known godfathers.

Zero Set saw Dieter Moebius and Conny Plank, both associated with seminal krautrock band Cluster, collaborate with drummer Mani Neumeier of the band Guru Guru. Apparently inspired by African music, “Pitch Control” basically sounds like Kraftwerk if you took it out for a couple of drinks and gave it dance lessons. It skitters and skips all over the place, the gears of the musical machinery drenched in luxurious curtains of satin-finish lubricating oil. In short, it’s one of the sexier krautrock songs out there—which, admittedly, probably won’t replace big gay disco anthems or top 40 hip-hop remixes in the clubs any time soon. But if you like a little funk in your groove, this might be a good place to start.

Chiptunes are often so tied to their 8-bit origins that no one ever really tries to separate the two—references to old school video games and MIDI banks run rampant, and pixelated imagery dominates. Japanese trio YMCK are no different; if anything they take the retro-binary aesthetic to an extreme, refashioning their entire identity around pixels.

Thanks to the wonders of the internet, I happened to be watching the live feed from Tokyo FM’s television network one late night at the beginning of the year. Every week or so TFMi airs a countdown of all the upcoming releases in the next couple of months, along with short interviews of the artists. It’s the sort of thing you probably used to be able to watch on MTV or MuchMusic, except that neither of them really bother to pay lip service to anything but the biggest musical acts and thus have no need to maintain anything resembling a complete release calendar, let alone devote half an hour of television a week to one. And even if they did, you’d never, ever, ever see the likes of YMCK on such a program; chiptune music is too cultish and too hard to fit into a prefab mainstream category to bother with. But there it was on Japanese television, complete with quirky 8-bit-esque music video.

My favourite part, though, was the artist interview. In the music video for “Starlight,” each YMCK member (identified by first name only, of course) has a specific duty, one of them being “video.” Having one dude handle all your video duties would be kind of a waste if all you did was produce music videos, so instead YMCK have him concoct the group’s entire public identity. So when it came to the artist interview, Tokyo FM’s audience didn’t see three beautifully-coiffed Japanese popstars; instead they saw three little 8-bit avatars without mouths, just like in the video, only they were talking up their album and acting as though they were real. It was like the Japanese version of Gorillaz, only instead of aggressively disproportional cartoon avatars they had little Super Mario Brothers-esque sprites. YMCK doesn’t actually go as far as to hide themselves at live shows or anything like that, but their virtual manifestations definitely get around.

As for the music, it sounds like what you’d expect—the soundtrack to some imaginary video game. Only in this particular case, it reminds me of a very particular video game: Katamari Damacy. The breathy female vocals, the layered, slightly jazzy music and the relaxed atmosphere sounds like the logical extension of the 8-bit Katamari Damacy theme song someone made a while back. YMCK have only released a single album in the States—debut album Family Music—so tracking down a copy of Family Genesis might be tough for those of us on the wrong side of the Pacific, but if you’re in Washington, D.C. in the next couple of days, the band will be in town to play the Japan! Culture + Hyperculture Festival on the 10th.

[review 2007: odds and ends]

Sometimes you can write entire screeds about an album. And sometimes you can barely write a sentence. For whatever reason, here’s some of the albums this year that had me fresh out of new perspectives.

Luke Vibert - Chicago, Detroit, Redruth. Not bad, but it’s no Wagon Christ, and “God” is annoying as hell. When Vibert gets into a good groove, though, like album closer “Swet,” you forget the bad tracks for a little while.

[review 2007: odds and ends]

Sometimes you can write entire screeds about an album. And sometimes you can barely write a sentence. For whatever reason, here’s some of the albums this year that had me fresh out of new perspectives.

Freezepop - Future Future Future Perfect. Freezepop expand their entourage of electronic instruments on their latest album, which is both a blessing and a curse; getting away from using just the Yamaha qy70 means the sound is richer and slicker than before, but one wonders if the band lost a bit of catchiness with the new setup; there are no bubbly pop numbers like “Stakeout” or “I Am Not Your Gameboy,” and the jury’s still out on whether more club-friendly numbers like “Pop Music is Not a Crime” and “Ninja of Love” are improvements. Whatever the case, though, it’s still a pretty catchy album, and current fans probably won’t be disappointed—especially if you’ve been a fan of the quirky lyrics, which are back in full force.

Massively prolific producer Luke Vibert’s latest release, Chicago, Detroit, Redruth, is only my second taste of his work, the first being an inspired purchase of 2004’s Sorry I Make You Lush under the Wagon Christ banner. In the past, Vibert’s many aliases have also served as neat containers for different modus operandi—Wagon Christ, for example, finds its roots in hip-hop and ambient, while Plug leans towards drum ‘n bass, and that’s just two of his better known identities. The man has suffered from split personalities for more than a decade now, though I’m sure his fan base is suffering through the extended instability rather well, thank you.

Even “Luke Vibert,” ostensibly his real name, is an alias of sorts; acid house and techno is the name of the game for Luke Vibert releases. An interesting choice, given that Vibert’s first love was apparently hip-hop. (Wagon Christ is a good name, though, so let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth.) Chicago, Detroit, Redruth is Vibert’s third album as “himself,” and comparing it to my only other frame of reference, I’d say that the elements I loved about Wagon Christ are still there, but muted—namely the sense of humour, the creative use of samples and the ability to lay down a solid groove. The sampling, in this case, hurts Vibert a bit—”God” is a decent chillout track that’s completely overwhelmed by loud and, frankly, annoying vocal samples. Luckily we get “Breakbeat Metal Music” and a machine MC to pick up the slack.

While we don’t get anything quite as uplifting as “Shadows” or outright goofy as “The Funnies,” the two tendencies fuse together to give us opener “Comfycozy,” a sprightly opener that doesn’t much resemble the rest of the album’s darker territory. Luckily, Vibert does remember to bring the solid beats, especially with the one-two closing punch of “Chicago, Detroit, Redruth” and “Swet.” Sorry I Make You Lush was good enough to get me to consider buying more of Vibert’s work; Chicago, Detroit, Redruth isn’t quite good enough to convince me I made the right decision, but I probably wouldn’t turn down the chance to buy his next major release. Or, I guess, his fifth next major release, since I’ve probably missed about five between 2004 and now.

I know what you’re thinking. But before you send the angry missives, some back story.

Out of the Loop is I Am the World Trade Center’s first album, and it was indeed released in 2001—July 2001, to be exact. So unless they read the same “bin Laden determined to strike U.S.” memo Bush received and dismissed that same summer, it’s safe to say the naming was a rather unfortunate coincidence. Not to mention the band played SXSW the previous year, so you’d have to imagine some pretty convoluted conspiracy-theory stuff to tie the band to the event.

For the record, I Am the World Trade Center hail from Athens, Georgia, but principal members Amy Dykes and Dan Gellar felt a kinship with New York City (where they lived for several years) that eventually translated into the band name. The WTC imagery was intended to reflect Dykes and Gellar’s equal-but-seperate relationship in the band—twin towers, distinct but performing under a single banner.

So with the band on tour and the album a scant few months old, just what happened six years ago when the towers came down? The media descended, though much of the attention was actually given to another band with another case of inadvertent bad timing: hip-hop duo The Coup were preparing their fourth album, Party Music, for release later that month, and had created cover art several months previous that featured the band detonating a bomb stashed in the top floors of the World Trade Center. Needless to say, that cover art was pulled. It’s quite a bit harder to pull your name off the shelf, though, but for a couple of months Dykes and Gellar did just that: though they didn’t pull any albums off the shelves, they toured as “I Am the World” for several months and put out a press release stating they’d come up with the name well before September 11th, and would you please stop bothering us already, we’re not trying to shock people.

The fact that there was any controversy at all is a bit funny, considering that otherwise I Am the World Trade Center is about as offensive as your great aunt’s pug. Pitchfork imagined the band to be the hypothetical product of Britney Spears discovering indie and making music with a guy in NYC on a laptop, and really that just about covers it. Only this is 2001, so we’re still talking about the relatively innocent version of Britney, and also well before the electro revival that replaced every keyboard sample with roughed-up, fuzzed-out versions of themselves. The result is very sweet and non-threatening—not the stuff of terrorists, this.

(P.S. In case you’re still not entirely convinced there’s no conspiracy here, some fuel to your fire: the 11th track on Out of the Loop? It’s called “September.” Ooooooh.)

2003 was a busy year for Doctor Who, the long-running British sci-fi television landmark. With the show dormant for fifteen years and the show’s 40th anniversary approaching, various arms of the BBC started up several projects to capitalize on the latent interest. Among the projects planned were a full animated feature to continue the series and a new remix soundtrack called Resistance is Futile. The BBC opened up its vast Doctor Who sound library to a number of artists for the purposes of remixing and reinterpretation, and the full album was to appear in early 2004 to commemorate the show’s 40th anniversary.

But something odd happened in late 2003 that would invalidate the animated feature’s official status and wipe out the compilation album entirely: the announcement of a new Doctor Who series, which started in 2005 and continues to this day. Resistance is Futile was announced around the same time, but for reasons unknown the project was canned at the last minute, leaving naught but a three-track sampler handed out at Panopticon 2003, a major UK-based Doctor Who convention. Saint Etienne’s contribution was one of the only tracks to see the light of day.