JASON FORREST - SHAMELESSLY EXCITING
The Walls of the City Shake
[3:09]6 Mb
New Wave Folk Austerity
[3:59]6.1 Mb
My 36 Favourite Punk Songs
[2:21]3.7 Mb
Storming Blues Rock
[3:34]6.1 Mb
Nightclothes and Headphones
[4:31]7.3 Mb
Dust Never Settles
[5:16]8.7 Mb
Dreaming and Remembering
[3:35]5.4 Mb
Skyrocket Saturday
[2:53]4.6 Mb
War Photographer
[4:01]7 Mb
Evil Doesnt Exist Anymore
[8:40]15.6 Mb
Jason Forrest "Shamelessly Exciting" Album Review
splattery drumf-ck brutality tempered with serious HOOKS
I love the mashed up million beats per minute ragga jungle drum 'n bass spazzcore as much as the next guy. Breakbeats chopped to bits and re-assembled into unplayable-by-humans hyperspeed electronic grind. Can't get enough. But anyone with a computer can whip up a earsplitting storm of beats and NOISE. There are of course a select few who approach their beats and samples and fist-to-the-face aggression as if they were, well, WRITING SONGS. Obviously this stuff is not for the dance floor, and as much as I love a huge slab of all out white hot sonic mayhem, a deft touch and some strange ideas applied to the very same ingredients can result in something truly amazing. The most recent Venetian Snares is a perfect example, dizzyingly complex drill and bass perfectly placed amidst gorgeous strings and melancholy melodies.
And now Mr. Jason Forrest, formerly known in electronic music circles as Donna Summer, has decided to take his own personal splattery drumf-ck brutality and temper it with songs, pop songs, vocalists, guitars, some serious HOOKS. Every track on here is still an amazing piece of masterful slicing and dicing, a busy blur of sample upon sample, beats careening wildly into other beats, getting all tangled up into gnarled chunks of dense rhythm and strange lumps of rock guitars and clipped vocals. Each track sounds like it was assembled from someone with ADD whipping through the classic rock stations on the radio dial, lots of wild guitar leads, wailing rock vocalists, throbbing rock bass, groovy pianos, shuffling jazzy interludes, full on rock freakouts, snippets of Steely Dan, Blondie and about a million more almost recognizable samples and of course lots of incredibly dense and un-funky and completely unhinged drum programming.
Country chantuese Laura Cantrell sings on one of the prettiest tracks, her gorgeous croon, laid atop a smeary blur of glitchy beats and hiccupping grooves, purloined from seventies AM radio. But that's merely the calm before, and after, and between the storms! Soon you're back on a bucking bronco made from every song you loved in highschool tossed in a blender, careening wildly through dense thickets of heavy metal guitar, prickly drum and bass, walls of guitar solos, cheezy synth jams, and old school funk grooves, creepy childlike vocals, and of course the kitchen sink. This is one of those records that seems too busy and too overwhelmingly jampacked to be at all listenable, but somehow Forrest manages to take all those parts and tie 'em up with a big red bow. Shamelessly Exciting indeed!
Video JASON FORREST - War Photographer
Excellent short! Kinda reminds me the SAMURAI JACK style (especially the episodes with mercenaries/pirates/thugs), if you know what I mean... So, tonight we'll rock with the rocking vikings on their boat. Feel free to sing along, even thought there are no lyrics: you can always improvise something. Jason Forrest is an electronic music producer known for noisy experimental electronica and breakcore. Until 2004 he recorded under the name Donna Summer. He created the record label Cock Rock Disco to release his own recordings. (Source: Wikipedia) War Photographer is featured on his album Shamelessly Exciting, released in October 2005. As I said, the author of the video is Joel Trussell. He's currently represented by Abacus and One Small Step.
THE CHAP - HAM
Baby I'm Hurtn
[2:24]4.1 Mb
Woop Woop
[4:10]6.3 Mb
Now Woel
[3:55]7 Mb
Long Distance Loving
[2:30]3.7 Mb
Woop
[3:20]4.8 Mb
Auto Where to
[3:47]5.9 Mb
The Premier at Last
[2:52]4.6 Mb
Arizona
[3:48]6.2 Mb
Arts Centre
[2:52]4.7 Mb
I'am Oozing Emotion
[2:43]4.6 Mb
Younger People
[1:55]2.8 Mb
Clissold Park
[5:51]9.8 Mb
Emerson Lake and Palmer
[3:03]3.9 Mb
The Chap "Ham" Album Review
Super fun, odd little pop album
It's probably safe to say that The Chap is an idiosyncratic rock group. On Ham, their latest release, the foursome slams together indie rock, new wave, glitchy electronics, and touches of about 10 other genres for a release that is always inventive and sometimes downright amazing. Their second full-length release moves in a much more accessible direction than their first, as they've seeminly taken all their oddities and crammed them into a much more digestible package.
That doesn't mean that you're still not going to get a stomping, shambling, hand-clapping singalong (the album opener of "Baby I'm Hurtin"), but never quite knowing where the group is going to head next is part of their charm. "Woop Woop" opens with some fairly plain electronic squiggles and a clicky beat, but soon a rubbery synth bassline drops alongside some skittery electronics and almost numbed vocals hilariously singing about the rise and fall of a garage rock band before huge orchestral keyboard stabs blast in over it all.
From there, the group busts out with lo-fi breakbeat singalongs ("Long Distance Lovin"), hazy guitar-laced spoken-word ("Arizona") and string-laced indie glitch pop ("The Premier At Last") that reminds one of The Books if they had more straightforward vocals. Not all their experiments work like gangbusters, though, and they completely bog down with the ultra-fuzzy guitars and cheesey arpeggio synths of "Now Woel" while "Woop" throws the album off a bit with semi-aimless noodling.
That said, there are plenty of absolutely standout tracks, including the quieter "Auto Where To," which finds the group mixing some lovely guitar playing and vocal harmonies while "Arts Centre" is another track that makes some subtle digs about a particular musical genre ("meet you at the post glitch laptop show") but backs it up musically by mixing loud bursts of melodic guitar with more subdued passages. "I Am Oozing Emotion" is another excellent track on the latter half of the album that packs huge guitar riffs, quiet electronics, and more playful lyrics into just over two minutes. A great follow-up from a group who seems to be getting better with each release.
(from almost cool music reviews)
Video the chap are Oozing Emotion
some scenes R from the play midnight summer dream // amateur unofficial video for "Oozing Emotion" from the Chap's album "the Ham"
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