The Oakland, CA sextet known as Subtle has released an impressive CD/DVD album called Wishingbone. The album includes a few remixes of theirs including Beck s Farewell Ride and a remix of a Ms. John Soda track called I’ (It is actually a remix of the song Technicolor).
The album also includes collaborations with Fog, Hrvatski and Mike Patton (Can you feel it, see it, hear it today? If you can t, then it doesn t matter anyway!).
If you are curious about how Oakland s Subtle and Germany s Ms. John Soda relate in a 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon kind of way it can be explained like this : 3 members of Subtle (Adam Doeseon Drucker, Jerry Jel Logan, Dax Pierson) are members in a California band known as Themselves, the California band Themselves are in another band known as 13 God. 13 God consists of the band members from Themselves and the cool as fuck German band known as the Notwist.
The Notwist consists of Markus Acher, Micha Acher, Martin Gretschmann, and Martin Messerschmid. Finally, Micha Acher of the Notwist comprises 1/2 of Ms. John Soda, along with the very lovely Stefanie Boehm.
Ok back to the album review. Wishingbone being a collection of, mostly, remixes from their previous album A New White, doesn t really have the continuity of a proper new album, but nevertheless the collection of songs on the album are ultra impressive, if a bit hard to classify and consume in one session. At times you will hear a nasally voiced rapper, rapping over the oddest beats and sound f/x, which reminded me of Hood s stuff from Cold House.
As an example would be the first track Swanmeat. The song starts off with a vocoder laced singing intro then a nasally voiced rapper speeding away at 100 miles an hour. The beats remind you of something from Hood or The Notwist and the song can be described as odd and fascinating.
The remix of Beck s Farewell continues the rapping meets odd beats with Beck s vocals blended into the mix. A little sample kicks in towards the middle which sounded like Led Zeppelin s Kashmir. Can t say I have heard Beck s original, but this remix is similiar to the first track Swanmeat, odd and utterly fascinating.
I Heart L.A. (feat Hrvalski) has the beats, distortion, synths to make it one hell of a song.
Love it. By Hook I didn t care for it as much as the other tracks, although the second half of the song is awesome. The Long Vein of the Voice (featuring Mike Patton) is plain weird, not sure where Mike Patton is in the mix, but I m sure he lurks somewhere in the oddity.
The Console Remix of F.K.O.
, changes pace and is a straight up brilliant electronic instrumental tune. Love it as well. Their remix of Ms.
John Soda s Technicolor, called I’ is amazing for the way they cut up and breakdown the original tune. They stripped out most of the original s beautiful electronics and created a more sparse clickety song that sounds almost as good as the original, but coming from a totally different angle..
if that makes sense. Wishingbone should be checked out. If you have an aversion to the strange and unusual it probably will not appeal immediately to you, but if you take the time to take some of the sounds in, it will open a door to some utterly fascinating music.
Awesome.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 24th, 2006 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the feed.
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