Bleep Bleep Bloop
Posted on | March 20, 2007 at 11:17 pm | Comments Off
Another capsule CD review:
Artist: Echoboy
Disc: Elektrik Soul Psymphonie
Released: 2007
Number of Tracks: 20
Total Disc Time: 61:08
Album Content: As I said in this entry, I bought this CD because I really liked Echoboy’s previous release Giraffe. Well, this new one is nothing like that one. I don’t have any other Echoboy releases to compare these two to, but I get the feeling this new one is more like their pre-Giraffe material, i.e. it’s more electronic and mostly instrumental. There’s nothing really wrong with it per se, it’s just that I was expecting something more along the lines of Giraffe, which is a pretty good pop/rock album with an electronic bent. All the songs on ESP aside from one (Lovesick Antelopes) are instrumental and heavily electronic (though guitars do sneak into a few songs).
The opening track, Mary From San Francisco, is a pretty solo piano piece, and I probably would’ve liked the album more if the rest of it sounded more like this. However, part of the melody reminds me strongly of a piano riff from a song on the second Tears For Fears album (Head Over Heels, I think), which is a bit jarring. Anyway, it’s probably my favorite song on the record and a good choice for an opener.
As with most electronic music, some of the songs drone a bit too much and some are too long. But at least there is some variety to the arrangements, like on the song Death Drums. Some of the tracks (especially the Interlude ones) are very short. This is pleasant enough background music but I don’t see it as something I’m going to be in the mood for very often. None of it is going on the iPod.
I wonder if Giraffe is an anomaly/experiment that didn’t sell very well compared to the rest of their catalog, so they (actually, the band is mostly a “he”, multi-instrumentalist Richard Warren) decided to go back to their old ways/style. Maybe Giraffe should’ve been put out under a different band name? Oh well, at least I’ll always have that album and I can play it whenever I want. I need the Comfort Of The Hum.
An extra Wag Of The Finger to Echoboy for the useless artist website, which contains the interior art from the album and a link to where you can buy it. And nothing else. The Echoboy page on the record label website isn’t much better. And there’s the obligatory MySpace page.
Sound quality: Pretty good. Some nice headphone effects.
Liner Notes: Some pics, credits.
Worth the CD Buy? Not really – download if you can and if you’re really interested. Too bad eMusic doesn’t have it.
Latre.