100 Lbs (Bonus CD) (Reis)

Herbert, Matthew Hebert | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 9, 2007)
• Original Release Date: 2007
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: K7
• ASIN: B000J3OWGQ
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #269,447 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mindlowing beats with a great sense of humor!, November 4, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: 100 Lbs. (Audio CD)

Herbert surprises you everytime. As soon as you think you got what it's all about he goes and changes in on you, keeping you always alert and listening for the next crazy modification. Pure Genius. I can't wait to get his new one. I hope Amazon carries it, i can't find it anywhere. Raquel Sousa. 11/04/98 Boston, MA.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars White Gold for House Lovers, Dross for Fashionistas, February 23, 2007

By 

Robespierre (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Lbs (Bonus CD) (Reis) (Audio CD)

If you're looking for trend-coasting tracks to match the sounds in current clubs, then you'd best search elsewhere. But if you're more interested in owning the best of the genre than scoping fashionable material, then grab this milestone. Here's your chance to trace a gifted producer's art back to its purest and least self-conscious form. You'll get your money's worth and more from this 2-CD morsel fest.

Historically, Herbert appeared at a turning point in House evolution. The son of a BBC orchestra engineer, and a classically trained composer/arranger, he was the sort of producer who grew easily bored: the standard house blueprint was fun initially but quickly became stifling. He needed to change the rules constantly to maintain the excitement.

One unifying element in the Herbert sound has always been his patented surgical swing. It's a carefully orchestrated 4/4 broken into dotted eighth and sixteenth note triplets that emphasize the last beat of the pattern, with fills broken up into redistributed geeky bits: a sound that's far more polite than Aaron Funk's but is as identifiable an approach to house as Funk's is to jungle. Herbert anticipated microhouse by half a decade.

Herbert's rhythmic signature repeats in nearly all his work no matter how much the techniques and style might change.

Certain non-musician friends have characterized 100 lbs as being close to generic house. I disagree. The first two cuts verge on typical, but the musical thought is already too clean and pared for that. (The first cut, "Rude," is stiff but precociously organized.) And from the third track on ("Thinking of You"), Herbert begins to assert himself. By the fifth cut, "Friday, They Dance," his harmonic sense is fully developed. Check that two-chord harmonic progression (C79 - e-flat minor 7): It's one he uses in Around the House, Bodily Functions, Secondhand Sounds and most of his later work.

The so-called "datedness" is really a matter of the synth palette Herbert had to work with: the same Roland/Korg/ReBirth gear he and his peers had at the time. No use faulting him for that -- it was all anybody had.

Stiffness returns in "Pen," but the track is instructive as a kind of five-finger exercise. The discerning listener will recognize seven elements that make up the solo rhythm track. Once informed, listeners can either go home, recreate it, and set about gigging as Herbert cover acts, or gain new insight into music they loved a few years back.

The eponymous cut, "110 lbs," probably sounded semi-industrial to Herbert back in '96, hence the steampunk imagery on the original vinyl cover. Today it sounds like a charming percolator, and epitomizes the surgical lightness and assurance for which Herbert's known. It does, however, make use of the played-out "let's start with a closed filter and gradually open it!" effect popularized by Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus in the early 90s.

Other cuts, such as "Take Me Back," will take *you* back in a way this 90s artist couldn't have foreseen: They'll make you nostalgic for a future that never happened, where every urban landscape features a docked space station with a 24-hour club hub. As an incarnation of that feeling, "Deeper" is particularly tasty.

The bonus CD of rarities proves even more diverse. There's "back to the start," Herbert's progenitor of Amon Tobin's "Verbal." There's "back back back," the kernel that became Bodily Functions (and "let's all make mistakes," H's perfect mix CD for the Tresor series). There's the Atari/Commodore/909 robot-friendly "The Puzzle," which incorporates Herbert's micro-swing. There's the underwater Rhodes sound of "Fishcoteque," which also incorporates the pitch-wobbly fretless bass that became a staple of H's style. There's the virally catchy "I hadn't known." There's the '80s computer graphics cartoon jazz of "I'll Do It." There's even the shameless "Trafalgar Road," in which Herbert and a young Dani Siciliano reveal themselves to be a closet Kiki 'n' Herb: a piano bar duo with a repertoire of glitchy love songs.

Is this re-release worth picking up in 2007 and later? If you love House and don't hate time machines, the answer is yes, yes, yes.

4.0 out of 5 stars Herbert - 100 Lbs, February 24, 2011

By 

scoundrel - See all my reviews

This review is from: 100 Lbs (Bonus CD) (Reis) (Audio CD)

Though not as polished as it could be, Herbert's debut album, 100 Lbs., still shows a unique sensibility and approach to house music. "Thinking of You" undoubtedly has the beat to make it work, but the smooth synths give it a bouncy outlook. "Oo Licky" beings to showcase of that Herbert humor, with the vocal sample and the digitized voice exhorting the listener to chill out. My favorite track here, "Friday They Dance" is deep and gracious, starting off quietly and content to maintain that mood. A few tracks seem a bit underdeveloped ("Take Me Back" and "Deeper," for instance), but those shortcomings are more than compensated for by other excellent tracks (like "Resident" or "See You On Monday"). Herbert has helped house move in a new direction, and this album shows the first few steps he took.