Joel Zimmerman, better known by his stage name Deadmau5, began his musical career in 2005 with the release of his debut album 'Get Scraped.' Since, he has released four further studio albums, with 'For Lack Of A Better Name' being the fourth studio Deadmau5 album, released in 2009.
Deadmau5: For Lack Of A Better Name
The album begins with 'FML,' which features possibly the most furious and incessant minute of snare drum playing ever to occur outside of rock music. This is soon relegated as house-style synths dominate, eventually subsiding to the famed funeral march at the beginning of 'Moar Ghosts 'n' Stuff,' an instrumental version of 'Ghosts 'n' Stuff,' which follows as a separate track. Given that no large passages of vocal material enter until the third track, Deadmau5 shows great skill in creating such interesting house arrangements from largely synthesisers.
The fourth track, 'Hi Friend!,' which features MC Flipside, also released as the first single of the album, shows a greater influence from electro music. This electro style continues into 'Bot,' which combines lowfi drums and additional elements which make it reminiscent to Daft Punk's output, in particular their soundtrack to 'Tron: Legacy,' reviewed here.
Among the later tracks in the album are the title track 'Lack Of A Better Name,' as well as the audibly trance influenced '16th Hour' and 'Strobe,' both over ten minutes long. This album illustrates clearly Deadmau5's versatility as an artist and its critical acclaim is by no means surprising.
Over the past few years, Lady Gaga has established herself as one of the biggest pop sensations of the decade. With her most recent release, 'Born This Way,' she stunned onlookers while delighting her fans with a great development of her dance-based singer songwriter style to a darker method of writing. Of note is a remix from the second single to be released from the album.
Lady Gaga: Judas - The Remixes
This single was specifically chosen due to its deviation from Gaga's more pop-oriented offerings, remixing her hit with a clear low-fi aesthetic comparable in a way to some of Soulwax's output. The track is adorned with groans, distorted bass lines and electronic processing to create a highly unique work.
The Remix begins with the groans which underpin the entire track, accompanied by Gaga's own vocals, processed even more than in her own albums. As is the norm for a remix, harmony has been embellished along with instrumentation, the chorus proving to be particularly interesting due to the noticeable warbling and variable speed of the accompaniment. As the piece progresses, the drum programming becomes frantic and all instrumentation builds to a climax at 3:10 in which the piece deteriorates into a pulsing drone, accompanied later by processed guitar which ends the piece.
While this is without doubt a great remix which develops Gaga's sound into a new setting, given the great deviation from the type of writing in her 'Born This Way' album, it is curious why such a remix could be conceived. Thankfully, this remix made it out and greatly diversifies the repertoire from this pop phenomenon, bringing it to a new audience of Electronic music lovers.
As part of ongoing reviews of works by independent artists alongside established stalwarts of the electronic music tradition, The Sonic Music Review presents a trio of works by Subsonic Winter. Effectively defenestrating any notion of impartiality with great aplomb but satisfying a desire for full disclosure, the artist here featured, Subsonic Winter, is an alias of The Sonic Music Review's cheif writer, Alex Harden.
This trio of compositions begins with 'Scorched Ice,' a track which makes no secret of its influence from Tangerine Dream's output from their Independent years. The track begins with an exposition of a recurring theme, set in a dark and breathy timbre which immediately introduces the overriding brooding mood to this track. As the piece develops, additional musical material is added alongside development of the first section. Later, the piece becomes led by harmonic and sequenced material in place of melodic counterpoint, before returning for a final exposition of the primary theme which slowly crossfades into the following track, 'Wind Of Change.'
This second track takes on a more ambient style, taking a lead from Jean Michel Jarre's 'Geometry Of Love Album' (reviewed here). This track fuses a much slower rate of harmonic change and the extended use of sampled strings alongside various synthetic timbres which create a soothing atmosphere which contrasts against its predecessor. Another key element is the soundscape of singing birds and crickets which underpin the majority of the piece.
The third and final track, 'Aquamarine' exhibits a highly optimistic mood in comparison to the other tracks featured. This track also incorporates elements from trance music which is previously unseen. This short portfolio, lasting just over 13 minutes, was created as part of coursework for a degree in Creative Music Technology. If anyone has any comments or questions regarding this work or its conception, please contact the blog.
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Throughout their career, Soulwax have remixed a number of tracks from big name artists such as Kylie and Daft Punk. This release, the title in full being 'Most of the remixes we've made for other people over the years except for the one for Einstürzende Neubauten because we lost it and a few we didn't think sounded good enough or just didn't fit in length-wise, but including some that are hard to find because either people forgot about them or simply because they haven't been released yet, a few we really love, one we think is just ok, some we did for free, some we did for money, some for ourselves without permission and some for friends as swaps but never on time and always at our studio in Ghent,' celebrates 14 of their biggest remixes up to 2007, with a second CD mixed by their 2 Many DJs counterpart.
Soulwax: Most Of The Remixes...
The compilation begins with Soulwax's remix of 'Robot Rock' by the French duo Daft Punk, consisting of an incessant electronic chord which constitutes largely the only material in the first minute, while a talk box-ed "robot rock" is modulated in various ways. In typical form, this degenerates into synthetic bleeps reminiscent of the video games of yesteryear. Fans of Daft Punk may also be pleased that 'Daft Punk Is Playing At My House' by LCD Soundsystem is also remixed and appears as track 3.
Among the later tracks come several other big names, including a syncopated low-fi remix of 'Dare' by Gorillaz and a particularly grunge influenced remix of Kylie's 'Cant Get You Out Of My Head.' One of the highlights is certainly the remix of 'Phantom Part 2' by Justice, which epitomises the upbeat distorted style of Soulwax.
Looking at the second disk, which features a different tracklisting to include additional tracks such as the Sugarbabes' 'Round Round,' the combination of Soulwax remixing and 2 Many DJs mixing of that material leads to an accomplished collection of material, which illustrates great skill. For those who are unacquainted with the stylings of Soulwax, the remixes contained within this release present a very unusual interpretation of pop music.
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