City Delirious

Lionrock | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (June 2, 1998)
• Original Release Date: June 2, 1998
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Time Bomb
• ASIN: B000007NSN
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #257,955 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

City Delirious is a complete smorgasbord of jazz, blues, hip-hop, and techno--at least four decades of musical influences--and Chef Lionrock (Justin Robertson) has earned his tenure as a DJ. The album is seamlessly divided into two vibes--the first half is a funked-out, jazzed-out, big-beat jam, and the second half is a loungy cool-down. The jazzy second track, "Rude Boy Rock," is a representative microcosm for the rest of the album. Giddy, quirky, and sexy, it scoots along in a madcap way and would have been a shoe-in candidate for the background music to a very special episode of Gilligan's Island. (Story line: James Bond surfs into the lagoon, has a few romps with Ginger, and spends the rest of the show trying not to get caught.) Robertson hails from Manchester, England, and tips his hat to the homestead by interjecting standard Happy Mondays/Soup Dragons-style Rasta-man samples over the top of the song.

The rest of the album is jammed with everything from early-'80s "industrial-lite" to Rolling Stones blues riffs to non-threatening raps that fall somewhere between Young MC and PM Dawn to the most reptilian of after-hours lounge. Someone this inventive and musically informed could have easily thrown together a record that was overwhelming and incongruent. But City Delirious is a sensationally tasteful buffet of rhythms, instruments, and influences--delicious from the first course to the last. --Beth Bessmer

Spin

City Delirious neither spies the future nor reflects the present, but instead cherry-picks the past, perhaps hoping to forestall dance music’s built-in obsolescence.

It’s a mod, mod, mod world on the set, with Robertson, cast as coffee-house hipster Expresso Bongo, urging the kids to jive to black culture. Drawing from a palette of shuffle rhythms, cool jazz, and Northern soul, the band recreates a rude-boy rebellion, fortifying the live instrumentation with analog electronics.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Album, October 1, 2004

By 

Leebert71 (Texas smalltown, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City Delirious (Audio CD)

How can an album that uses the phrase "Just spread the magic powder in the trash" not be good?

Seriously, this album is great. I bought it not knowing what to expect; what I got was a solid album of groove. This a cd you can throw in to the player and drive all day long to. Scatter & Swing and Canal Heist are superb. She's on the Train is also a very good tune.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent CD. A must buy for any house fan., February 9, 1999

By 

Thomas Bonneau (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City Delirious (Audio CD)

I highly recommend this CD. Its ecletic sound is infectious. A few tracks have lyrics which break up the CD nicely. Stand out tracks are Rude Boy Rock and Track 1. It is one of those rare complete CDs that can be listened to from beginning to end in one seamless, comfortable sitting. I highly recommend this CD.

4.0 out of 5 stars Supreme funkiness, February 23, 2008

By 

ahren "Life enthusiast" (Ft. Huachuca, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City Delirious (Audio CD)

This is the second album from Lionrock and it is just as good as the first. Complete with funky, rythmic beats and great inner fusion of jazz and techno. There are also a few songs that bring more of those soft, poetic, yet charged lyrics that were so prevelent in the first album. If you crave a hard, funky beat and good, original music, then look no further.