Customer Reviews

Chotto Matte a Moment!

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This album is so, so much better than the reviews say. The band is a keyboard player, a standup bass player, and a third character who mans the theremin, turntables, and any other wack noises they require.

IQU combines the playful joy of Mu-Ziq with the jazzy standup bass of Squarepusher's "Music Is Rotted One Note" with some of the abstract acid jazz of Amon Tobin. This is fun, fun music.

This album is quirky, fun music. No, it's not perfect, but it's taking risks and and makes good on most of them. I'm pretty sure it doesn't sound anything like any other recording you own, and that should be a good enough reason to check it out.

although i agree with the first reviewer that, at least in music, the ends justify the means and not vice versa, i disagree with their conclusion on icu (at least in part). if using an bonafide wood upright pumps life into this tired genre (as i believe it does here), then arm yerself with a string quartet and glen branca's army of guitars. whatever it takes. these days, the sweaty funk of the 70s has been reduced to the safe and stoic pings of way too many d&b hacks with way too much time on their hands. get a job! as for alt-rock, it really isn't that alt and it seldom rocks. i want a little panic and a little danger and snicker in my tunes, and icu delivers (partly). they're throwing some great organic curves, human moods, into their stuff - consequently, it's got life. and yopparai is the highlight - infectious frantic candy. love it.

but my complaint (and it's big) is the sag in the last half of chotto. whistle thru bouncing baby buddah sound like filler. 4 tracks - that's a lot of drag! fortunately, the final unlisted track reminds me of what they can do. just hope that next time they do it thru an entire album. think of this as an expensive ep but worth it and buy it.

other stuff i like: zoviet france, slint, we, yo la tengo, royal trux, tipsy - check 'em out!

After relishing many a live show and one wonderful 7" single, "Despite The Smell of Colors...Vol. i", the wait is over: icu have issued via K their beautiful document of analog electonica, Chotto Matte A MOMENT! This is modern DIY ethics at it's most hybridized, a bricolage of influence from the past and the present. icu's ernestness to express what somersaults through their brains is limited only by finance, and so the band are left to utilize only the tools which are readily available to execute their sounds. With upright bass plodding an amplified-acoustic groove that's somewhat reminiscent of Krautrockers Can, analog synthisizers whcih are hotwired, soldered and duct-taped after a weekend score at a local estate sale, a smattering of turntables, samplers, programmers, theremin chops to make Clara Rockmore blush and guitar tapestries which weave 70's psych and modern underground Tokyo noise, icu ultimately create an old standard: pop music. Make no mistake, this is lo-fi music in a genre otherwise considered high-tech...groove/psyche laced with Ninja Tune sounds cushioned by the charm of bedroom wizards such as Land Of The Loops. Chotto Matte A MOMENT! is fantastic, yet it merely scratches the surface of the band's potential, hints at what's to come in the future and really serves to fill the void of their amazing live performances...and a live band is what icu ultimately are. Another anomoly in the electronic music sphere. Trippy, funky, silly, ragged, rockin', sincere. This is icu, hinting at what is to come for the future of pop music in a world where influences and styles are consistently being blurred together and reinvented. Where rock, rave, DJ and dance collide. If only they could afford better equipment...but at the expensive of their resourceful charm?

Well - all I can say is that I completed most of my Spring 1999 collection listening to this CD, it greatly informed one of my favorite collections yet! :)

Thanks!

musicians draw the strangest lines.

some musicians brag that they program all thier own drums and people who use loops suck.

some musicians brag that they only use thier sampler sequencer and that people who use desk top sequencers suck.

some musicians brag that all they use is a turntable and that musicians who use samplers suck.

some musicians brag that they only use analogue equiptment and that musicians who use digital suck.

some musicians brag that they only use accoustic instroments and that musicans who use electric instroments suck.

what it comes down to is that anyone making music is going to try and say that they are the best, and they are going to have to come up with reasons. some of them will be legit. some of them will be bullcrap.

if you compare icu to 99 percent of jazz, they suck. icu makes decent noodlie tracks. but they aren't really that innovative.

please don't tell me they are the nw answer to represents or medenski martin and wood or dr.isreals tru mystic sound system because they really aren't that great.

who cares if they play instroments so do 50,000 other bar bands. that doesn't mean they are any good.

listen for yourself.

theres nothing going on on this album at all. theres a few interesting moments, but nothing else. anyone familiar with music will know this. just buy yourself a breakbeats record and turn on the tv, youll have a much better experience.

what waste of vinyl.