American club culture still is brandishing its fake ID to get through the doors of electronica. Fortunately, for a nation with a double-digit musical IQ, there is a saving grace: Europe, home of romance languages, political coups and intelligent music.
By night, beautiful beats bang out of streetside saloons from Sussex to Ibiza, and by day scores of Brits and Parisians immerse themselves in techno, big-beat, ambient and drum-and-bass for the sole reason that electronic music is radically thoughtful and brilliant. The Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, a group of six Englishmen whose 1999 U.S. debut caught the attention of many American radio stations with "How to Operate with a Blown Mind," are the most recent addition to the big-beat dance music family.
The group's upcoming mix album - the second disc in the "On the Floor at the Boutique" series - is an amalgam of electro-funk, progressive house and hip-hop that can be commended for little else than a few clever song selections.
The people in charge of The Boutique, a 600-person-capacity club in Brighton Beach, England, decided two years ago that the club was substantial enough to release CDs depicting what the club represented, and had Norman Cook (a.k.a Fatboy Slim), popular electronic pioneer, orchestrate a compilation of its musical style. Now, the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars, presumably stemming from their relatively successful 1999 release, ha ve been given a chance to man the decks.
The mix, a seemingly desperate attempt to portray The Boutique as versatile, only ends up proving that the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars have lots of cool sampling records.
The album was recorded "live in the Lo Fi's bedroom/studio" and not live at The Boutique. The All-Stars take two influential, pro-black, hip-hop epics (Boogie Down Production's "You Must Learn" and the Jungle Brother's "Black is Black" featuring Q-tip), two misplaced, fun-loving souldies (Felice Taylor's "I Can Feel Your Love" and The Tams "Be Young Be Foolish Be Happy) and a handful of techno and funk, and combine them on one album.
Unfortunately, the disc lacks concept. Global House mix figureheads like Sasha, considered by many to be the best in the world, and Paul Oakenfold, mixmaster of the best-selling dance album in U.S. history, create atmospheres fueled by rhythm and filled with climax. But the All-Stars' big-beat simply is songs strung together: no continuity, nothing emotive and a blaring lack of conviction.
Employing hardly any technique other than elementary cross-fading of songs to move from one track to another, Lo-Fi's ordering does not make much musical sense. Blackstreet's popular-but-feeble "No Diggity" jumps awkwardly to Indian Ropeman's bass-heavy instrumental, "Stand Clear." "Be Young Be Happy Be Foolish," an uplifting throwback tune, dies away only to have The Prodigy's "Out of Space" follow. Hardly a song ready for the dance floor, the early '90s electronic genius emerges with abrupt rhythmic pauses and without the proper accompaniment to enable it to function as the break-hea vy yet suspenseful idea that it is.
The All-Stars repeatedly strip the songs of their worth by putting them in incongruous contexts. Perhaps the only bright spot of the 73-minute debacle is Les Rhythmes Digitales' "(Hey You) What's that Sound," which later gives way to Space Raiders' "(I Need The) Disko Doctor." It is the only moment of "On the Floor at the Boutique" in which there is any thrill at all - the drums and melodies climb into the background while the computerized voice begs for the medic of movement. Sadly, this anxious instant is a Space Raiders' original, not something the All-Stars manifested themselves.
Any group that manages to show up on the U.S. electronic music radar (though Lo-Fi's original album is not staggeringly electronic in its composition) with one release, needs to understand the importance of catalyzing further interest and progression of the undervalued genre. "On the Floor at the Boutique," is a tragically monstrous regression.
Grade: C-
Read More
The best albums of 2014
By Noah Zeidman | December 4, 2014Across genres, it has been a pretty great year in music.
Top 10 movies of 2014
December 4, 2014This has been an excellent year for film, offering everything from gripping blockbusters to innovative personal films.
Iggy Azalea is “Reclassified”
December 4, 2014It has become common practice among music artists to repackage their albums in an effort to simultaneously boost single sales and dish out new content by slightly renaming the album or slapping “Deluxe” onto the title.
