ELECTROLOUNGE ARCHIVE S-T
NuJazz TripHop Ambient Dance

Easy Tempo/Temposphere production mainstay Gak Sato makes a stylistic break from his label debut Post-echo. Unlike that 1998 record, Tangram eschews easy swingin' retro sounds for something more contemporary.

The disc opens promisingly with "Style," wherein guest speaker Steve Piccolo recites Charles Bukowski's famous rumination on the elusiveness of style. Meanwhile, Sato sets up a compelling rhythm bed, punctuated with a simple, eloquent melody.

From there, Sato ventures further into nu-jazz territory, exploring rhythm above all else. That's not to say Sato's newest offering is minimalist. Au contraire, Sato delivers plenty of catchy melodies along the way.

The title track itself is a standout. Trumpet player Nargo of the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra blows over pulsating keyboard and bass lines, all of which is driven by an insistant Latin house beat.

Other guest musicians enliven the proceedings as well, notably guitarist Roberto Cecchetto on "Turnabout of a City," bass clarinetist Giancarlo Locatellii, trumpet player Pepe Ragonese and double bassist Marco Micheli on a couple of others.

Latin rhythms are the common thread through most of Tangram, where tongue-in-cheek easy listening informs much of Post-echo.

There are exceptions, of course. "Synapselapse" is a throbbing chunk of crime jazz -- easily the funkiest track here.

Occasionally, Sato ventures into more abstract ambient territory. "The Great Beyond" is a good example, with its walking noises, distant sacrad chants, tick-tocking clock.

A bigger surprise is Sato's take on Eric Satie's "Vexations," a haunting piece originally conceived to be played repeatedly by a succession of pianists over the course of 24 hours. Sato's version clocks in at just under two minutes. Put it on repeat if you dare. As the title suggests, it has a great power to make the listener ill at ease. The fact that it shows up on Tangram is odd, since the rest of the disc is anything but "vexing."

The long-awaited second coming of Seksu Roba comes with a few surprises. Pleasure Vibrations, like the L.A. duo's self-titled debut, pulsates with gratifying vintage synth textures. Producer Sukho Lee's grasp of the technology is a step up from where it was a few years ago. The arrangements and production quality have gained a new sophistication without sounding glossed over or generic.

While "Sex Donkey" (as the group's name translates) is still preoccupied with sex ("Afternoon Rendezvous" "Erotico" "The Flesh is Weak"), the music has taken a new direction. With vocalist Lun'na Menoh taking a more prominant role, the songs show a strong '80s acid disco bent (think Yellow Magic Orchestra). Nearly every song features female vocals (including two guests), whereas the first album favored psychadelic lounge core instrumentals with samples.

The disc is stylistically consistant and well paced. Stand-out tracks include "Fantasy", "Labios Dulces" "L.A. Freeway", "Hesitation", "The Night is Mine", "Erotico" and the closer "Improvisation for 5 Theremins". There are also covers of Jimmy Webb's "Up, Up and Away" and Kevin Shields' "Moon Song".

Again, artist Ueno "Amore" Hirosuke provides a yummy cover illustration. Pleasure Vibrations is good clean kinky fun -- just the thing for your next "beautiful mindless orgy." Get nekid!

Sounding a little bit like label mates Cinematic Orchestra, the Polish DJ/production duo Skalpel has made no secret of its affection for smoky '60s/'70s jazz.

On the group's eponymous Ninja Tune debut, Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudlo deliver an atmospheric 4-deck mix of obscure samples and breaks re-imagined for the 21st century.

Depending on one's exposure to jazzy electronica, the album could strike some listeners as more of the same old thing whilst sound totally fresh to others. Regardless of taste and tolerance, the Skalpel record is a well-crafted cut 'n' paste homage to a legendary era of Polish jazz.

Slipper's Invisible Movies is a near perfect example of moody sampledelic electronica. The group -- made up of Sam Dodson, Linda Finger, Liz Fletcher and Rat Scabies -- is wearing its cinematic predelections on its collective sleeve, by naming its debut in such an obvious fashion. At least the music lives up to the premise by delivering atmosphere and even a measure of suspense with richly layered loops and dialogue samples, with each track leading cleanly into the next. Speaking of samples, listen for the sci-fi sounds of Art Mineo's Man in Space with Sounds, the "original soundtrack" for the 1962 World's Fair. Nicely done.

[  to the top, baby!  ]

See the Light is a Thievery Corporation-compiled set of tracks by Austrian nouveau dub collective Sofa Surfers. In fact, the album opener, Richard Dorfmeister's remix of "Sofa Rockers" sounds like a Thievery track, but not a particularly good one. The self-consciously sophisticated ultra-chilled production style is a tad too vanilla to be an effective opener. It's best to skip it for track two, "Long Bone," which is more in keeping with the group's smoky dub/hip hop hybrid aesthetic.

Balancing thick and juicy beats and bass with tense atmospherics and somewhat politically charged vocals, Sofa Surfers rarely create a truly outstanding track. However, taken as a CD-long listening experience See the Light is certainly absorbing. Like an hallucinogenic high the CD sounds hypnotic and seductive, but I challenge you to remember anything in particular the next morning.

For a completely different dub sound, check out Library Science's High Life Honey. Created by Mildred Pitt of The Bran Flakes and members of The Melody Unit, High Life Honey is rife with bizarre sonic wrinkles. The production is not as slick as Sofa Surfers and there's no hint of hip hop. It sticks closer to the classic dub template, but takes a sometimes humorous lo-fi approach, adding in instruments like harmonica, flanged fuzzy guitar lines and analog synth sounds. Like a different hallucinogen, the listening experience is giddy and eccentric, and the morning after is a woozy one. Who needs drugs when you have Library Science!

Certain to land on many Best of 2002 lists, Steroid Maximus' Ectopia is an outstanding example of cinematic electronica. J.G. Thirlwell -- the mastermind behind Foetus and many other projects -- pulls out all the musical stops, creating a complex, multi-hued monster of propulsive millenial spy jazz.

Sometimes sounding like a David Arnold James Bond score and at other times sounding like Amon Tobin, Ectopia delivers track after track of high octane imaginary soundtracks. Some of the track titles are evocative ("Bad Day in Greenpoint," "Seventy Cops"), but they hardly need any help: each track has such an intense mood, you'd think these really were from movies.

Learn more about this instant classic. Read the exclusive interview with J.G. Thirlwell.

Sukia's Ross Harris and Craig Borrell recorded this Mexican-tinged cut'n'paste psychadelia before becoming DJ Me DJ You. Produced with the help of the Dust Brothers for NickelBag, Sukia's record has a similar aesthetic to Beck's Odelay, also produced by the Dust Brothers. But it really belongs next to DJ Me DJ You in your collection of electrolounge.

The record is rife with freaked out electronics, weirdo voices and catchy beats. The sense of absurdity that pervades every track is vintage 1996 (in "Double Mono Action!), but is still amusing today. Fans of Seksu Roba, Tipsy, Anubian Lights (and every other record on this page!) are sure to get a kick out of it.

Liverpudlian collective Super Numeri make music that wouldn't have been out of place on the last half of Can's Tago Mago or Miles Davis' In a Silent Way (or any of Miles' other early '70s). With influences like those, it's no wonder that Great Aviaries worms its way into one's ear so easily. Entirely instrumental (and organic to boot with no apparent samples), tracks like "Sundials" and "Leisure Lakes" effortlessly cast a spell. Sometimes built on a groove, but just as often built on tenuous experiments in ambience, the pieces present themselves without the pretense of meaning or melodic intent. In less capable hands, it might all come off as moronic noodling, but Super Numeri's core trio of Levi, Webb and Ant manage to capture something haunting. Truly a headphone listen.

D.C.'s slickest downtempo hipsters are back with a new batch of multi-culti infusion grooves. The last full length from Garza and Hilton, The Mirror Conspiracy, was an unexpected hit (at least by "electronica" standards). So it should come as no surprise that T.C. is sticking with a successful formula, namely lilting reggae and Latin rhythms, eastern flourishes, chilled sophistication and crisp production. It would be unfair to call The Richest Man in Babylon a rehash, though sometimes it's tempting, given the shortage of new ideas. Like any "good" corporation, Thievery knows its strengths and puts 'em to effective use. Enjoyable, but not essential.

Tipsy is back after a five-year hiatus and little has changed. That's unquestionably a good thing, since most fans of trip hop and exotica probably consider Tipsy to be a gift from some funky pagan god.

Tipsy's debut, Trip Tease, is a masterpiece of the lounge/exotica revival of the mid 90s. Not wanting to limit themselves stylistically, David Gardner and Tim Digulla told The Wire magazine a few years back that they would explore other genres next time out. But here they are in '01, sounding a lot like '96.

I guess I shouldn't complain. Tipsy sounds fresher and friskier than ever. Tracks like "Hard Petting" "Wig Out" and "Reverse Cowgirl" are flawless gems. Combining live instrumentation (vibes, surf guitar, organ, theremin, etc) with scratchin' and samples, Tipsy achieves a perfect blend of old and new (think Esquivel meets Amon Tobin).

If there are differences between the first album and this one, they are subtle ones. Vocal samples make frequent albeit brief appearances. The arrangments are a bit more complicated, but otherwise consistant with the first outing. On the whole, there's no denying Gardner and Digulla's mastery of the trip hop exotica genre -- hell, they invented it. Even if they never fully explore another genre, Tipsy will have left an indelible mark on every irony tripper's record collection.

Hard Petting is the first new Tipsy music since its masterful 1996 debut Triptease. This CD single offers two new tracks, along with remixes of both. Despite the four-year hiatus Tipsy still creates a trip hop exotica sound. "Hard Petting" and "XXXMAS" are in the same vein as Triptease, but subtly enhanced through the use of female murmurings and electric bass. The remixes by Tipsy and AntiMatter are fairly interesting, but two more new tracks would have been better.

The cover art is reminiscent of the simplistic illustration style used on the sleaziest variety of pulp paperbacks of the 50s and 60s. And in miniscule print on the back, it says "For Lolita".

Let's hope Tipsy doesn't delay any further in creating another full length disc. They've obviously still got what it takes.

Speaking of Tipsy... I know it isn't a movie soundtrack, but it is soundtrackesque, or should I say soundsexotica. It is laden with Martin Dennyisms, not to mention Les Baxterisms. And how about those Esquivelian arrangements (check out "Grossenhosen" if your just confused).

Tipsy is the '96 brain child of Tim Digulla and David J. Gardner, some San Francisco cats with a box of exotic and incredibly strange records, a beat box, wheels of stee, some musical friends and a cocktail or two.

Tipsy is a classic of its kind. Exotic, funky, sexy in unexpected ways. Tipsy happily exploits the Perrey & Kingsley penchant for electronic stereophonic extravagences. It's part of Tipsy's fundamental character. ("Zenith" is very 10th Victim.)

If you don't believe me take a look at the titles:

Mr Excitement
Space Golf
Grossenhosen
Tuatara
Nude on the Moon
El Bombo Atomico
Liquordelic
Cinnabar
Fuad Ramses
Oops!
Ugly Stadium
Something Special
Zenith

Except for a couple of couple of remixes on an Asphodal compilation, Tipsy has kept a low profile since its debut. Maybe they're afraid of repeating themselves. Too bad. I know a lot of people who'd like to hear more.

Amon Tobin is back. Need I say more? The king of cinematic beats hooked up with a few friends to produce collaborative tracks to augment four remixes of "Verbal", the maddest cut from last year's full length Out from Out Where.

The five collaborations with Kid Koala, Bonobo, P-Love, Steinski and Doubleclick all favor Tobin's signature sound: sinister darkness, abstract beat patterns and murky atmospheres. They wouldn't sound seriously out of place on one of Tobin's other albums.

The four remixes of "Verbal", on the other hand, sound distinctly different. Prefuse 73, who practically invented the template for Tobin's original version of "Verbal", slices the vocal chunks even thinner. Topo Gigio, Kid 686 and Boom Bip also get in the act, transforming the track every time. None of the remixes better the original, but they are worthy attempts just the same.

The celebrated Brazilian drum 'n' bass ninja Amon Tobin is back on top with his latest full length Out from Out Where. Sure, that's a strange title, but it's fitting, given Tobin's penchant for dense other-worldly sounds and hyper speed rhythms.

The disc opens with "Back from Space," which carries a sample that sounds suspiciously like something from Tchiakovsky's "The Nutcracker." That's no surprise, given Tobin's love of orchestral flourishes. This is followed by the first single "Verbal," which sounds inspired by fellow ninja Prefuse 73's abstract hip hop cut ups. After that, it's back to more familiar Tobin territory -- not that we're complaining! Tracks like "Chronic Tronic" and "Proper Hoodidge" display Tobin's talent for fierce bebop drum breaks and tense cinematic moods. Any second you half expect someone to yell: "Get down! It's gonna BLOW!!"

Like Tobin's previous work, Out from Out Where is sci-fi infused mind warp and an electronica tour de force. Submit to the master.

Let me just say this up front: Twink is a must have for anyone who enjoys a unique musical vision. Twink, which is an illustrated book and CD, is the work of Mike Langlie, a collector of toy instruments who isn't satisfied to merely tinker with them. Instead of putting together a cutesy novelty record, he's created an hour's worth of imaginative, intricately arranged compositions that convey a mix of giddy naivety and fierce intelligence.

With song titles like "Ant Farm" and "Dance of the Fire Flies" it is tempting to enter the listening experience with a certain amount of skepticism -- just how nauseatingly cutesy will Twink be? But instead of nauseating, you get fascinating. It's astonishing the range of moods Langlie coaxes out of instruments such as: toy piano, slide whistle, water glasses, squeaky toys and giggle sticks. Some of these tracks are actually suspenseful and dark -- and all of it provides proof of a sophisticated musical mind.

The book features a picture story about a toy piano-playing rabbit who jams with woodland critters. The drawings are charming and have an almost zen-like simplicity. Highly recommended.

* To get the Twink package, contact Mike Langlie