Frankie Pett Presents the Happy Submarines

Dead Voices On Air | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (August 8, 2000)
• Original Release Date: July 28, 2000
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Invisible Records
• ASIN: B00004TSBC
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #480,178 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unbelievably progressive, June 23, 2000

By 

Zach Forbes (Durham, North Carolina) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankie Pett Presents the Happy Submarines (Audio CD)

I'd just like to comment that this new DVOA release is for sure one of the finest experimental releases of the year 2000. For me, Mark Spybey & Co's last release was an amazing step forward (not to mention my top album of 1998, buy it too!), but now I'm left in awe again. "Frankie Pett.." features more electronics, in a manner that is very uniquely Mark Spybey, paired with his always powerful panambience, granular waves, and passionate textures....

A truly timeless album packed with emotion, sincerity, and intelligence.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bored of DVOA?, May 2, 2002

By 

"livesidog" (Lancaster, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankie Pett Presents the Happy Submarines (Audio CD)

"Frankie Pett Presents..." is the sixth album from Mark Spybey, the man behind Dead Voices On Air. This album, much like his other releases, relies heavily on found sounds and soundscapes to create eerie, "anti-ambient" (his words, not mine) moods. Most of these albums, "Frankie Pett" included, share a certain sonic vocabulary -- sounds, patterns and effects that reoccur in each DVOA album.

This disc builds upon the usual Dead Voices On Air sound by adding several collaborators to the mix -- multi-instrumentalist and previous DVOA collaborator Darryl Neudorf and Legendary Pink Dots saxophonist Neils Van Hoorn, amongst others. The result is more structured song-like tracks, as compared to DVOA's earlier, more atmospheric works. 1998's "Piss Frond" also featured structured, collaborative pieces, but it lacked the mood of classics like "Hafted Maul" and "How Hollow Heart" and was perhaps too collaborative.

Where this disc really shines is in pieces like "Zeehond" and "Bored of Canada" (which wins my prize for track title of the year, especially given Spybey's recent departure from Canada for Europe) that successfully blend Spybey's sounds and textures with Neudorf's beats and rhythms. Another standout is "Dolfijn", an interesting foray into the genre of noise. The combination of electronic noise with the usual DVOA-style swirls of atmosphere and feedback makes this track both mesmerizing and unsettling.

My only complaints with this disc stem from two tracks that seem somewhat out-of-place within the context of the rest of the album. "Wet Fire Cotton" features guitars, bass and drums and a rock song-like structure. While the track itself is enjoyable (in fact, I wouldn't mind a whole album of material like this), it interrupts the atmosphere of the disc. As does "The Brothers Casio", a track dominated by an overprocessed 808-style drum loop. These diversions, while interesting, almost spoil the unsettling moods that the rest of the album is so successful in creating.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars ...but I still have faith., December 29, 2000

By 

Jesse Melat (Cleveland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Frankie Pett Presents the Happy Submarines (Audio CD)

Man, am I gonna get blasted with the unhelpfuls for this.

I loved Piss Frond. I loved Shap. I like Merzbow and I like Main. But I do not like this. With the exception of a few VERY atypical and uncohesive tracks(Bored of Canada, Wet Fire Cotton, The Brother Casio, which I'll discuss later) what this sounds like is Shap being forced to obey the structure laws of Piss Frond, and it just doesn't work. At all.

The problem with Frankie Pett... is that the music is too boring and structureless to be active listening music, and too crowded and complex to be ambient of any kind. Thus we are left with a rather annoying mix of looped found sounds and "spooky" effects. The sole place where Spybey and co. finally get this to work is on the final track "Ice Cream For Girl" which is nicely haunting and lonesome, with flutes, Spybey-ish effects, and even vocals. The rest: Dogger, Sweet Garbage Streets all sound like noodling, careless fooling around with what might eventually evolve into a DVOA piece, but then again might not.

The atypical pieces I mentioned above are what makes up most of that second star I gave the release; the aptly named "Bored of Canada," which sounds only slightly like the band to whom Spybey is playing tribute with its title, is quite enjoyable and upbeat, as is the Chemical-Brothers-only-goodesque "Wet Fire Cotton," which features of all things a very rocking saxophone amidst the zooming techno beats. "The Brother Casio" does not fare so well, unfortunately, and almost sounds like Spybey lamely attempting to compose a powernoise piece. It's just too simple in construction to be interesting, and there are countless genuine powernoise bands who have done this a lot better.

Though the cover art is nice and the text history of Klaverland that's included in the CD booklet is hilarious, Frankie Pett... is the worst Mark Spybey-related release I've ever heard. I'm no stranger to strange and new forms of music, but I(and hopefully, you) must concede that there always exists the possibility of genuine, true-blue wank, and I think this is a prime example. It's just very sad that it has to come from one of the genre's most productive and influential artists.