My Way

Akufen (Artist) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 14, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Efa Imports
• ASIN: B0000646F1
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #321,502 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Even White Horizons

2. Installation

3. Skidoos

4. Deck The House

5. Wet Floors

6. Heaven Can't Wait

7. In Dog We Trust

8. Jeep Sex

9. Late Night Munchies

10. My Way

Editorial Reviews

From URB Magazine

Call it house music if you will. After all, the genre's trademark 4/4 thump is all over the damn thing. Oh. You prefer to refer to this as "Plunderphonia?" Just as well. For Montreal-based Marc Leclair's most recent alias, Akufen, it's the unlikely meeting of these two typically exclusive propositions. It's telling that Akufen represents the phonetic spelling of the French word for tinnitus — a constant ringing in one's ears. For what he's done on My Way is utilize the endless stream of FM radio detritus as his main sample source. A worthy metaphor, no? "Sure," you say, not impressed. "But I've heard such plunderings in the cut 'n' paste poetics of Negativland, even KMFDM." Perhaps, but I'm betting you've never heard sampling done quite like this.

My Way is a hypertext jigsaw reverie not unlike Matmos taking a razor to FM radio, inviting Prefuse 73, Herbert and the Avalanches over to lend a hand, and asking Larry Levan and Basement Jaxx to give it the once over. Some people make head music, right? And others orient theirs toward the rump? Well, Leclair unites these alienated anatomical regions in a glorious celebration of ass/mind synthesis. Witness "Skidoos," wherein a synth blur Pet Shop Boys would pine for gathers dust under a bass-merger of Luomo and Bootsy Collins. Or "Jeep Sex," whence James Gang's "Funk 49" and AM-grade harmonica skitter pebble-like atop a leftover Paradise Garage bass line. It's a pop-house mind-fuck, the likes of which I've never heard. Plunder-house has never sounded so cheeky. Or so good.

Alexis Georgopoulos

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Secret Radio, January 16, 2003

By 

P. Gunderson (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Way (Audio CD)

"My Way" was put together by sampling radio waves, slicing these sounds into small parts (voices, flashes of static, a bowed string, a vocal line, computer blips and the like) and reassembling them into house-inflected techno. It sounds like the radio waves have a secret life of their own when they aren't doing their jobs broadcasting Top 40 drivel--and boy do they like to cut loose.

Akufen never lets his experimentalism get in the way of a good time. All of these tracks groove in the funkiest of ways. Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Several inspirations......, September 15, 2002

By 

Ryan Schweitzer (Bismarck, ND USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: My Way (Audio CD)

Akufen. As all the reviews here basically sum up, his style is basically if John Oswald, Todd Edwards, Larry Levan, Daft Punk, John Cage, Bootsy Collins, George Clinton (along with Parliament/Funkadelic), James Brown, Avalanches, (Matthew) Herbert, Scott Herren, and Matmos all decided to cram themselves in a studio equipped with several AM/FM radios and make an album. In other words, Mr. LeClair has made an excellent, beautiful and groovy-and-funky-as-hell album worthy of being a legend. It's in heavy rotation in my domicile....

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Akufen takes experimental house to new levels, December 19, 2003

By 

Pantytec is my god, it should be yours too (Tem) (Pittsburgh, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: My Way (Audio CD)

Not only is this cd good, but its a good example of technology in motion without you even knowing it. Marc LeClair has single handledly taken pop culture and compressed it in a very accesible house album. Can you recognize the vocal snippets of Steve Perry of Journey, Janet Jackson, and Jewel on "Heaven Can Wait" ? I didn't think so. Which is another thing about this CD, you could honestly spend hours trying to find what is what. Akufen continues to be one of my favorite producers, because in the House genre, it seems producers think less and focus more on the big body shakin' sound. However Akufen doesn't neglect this sound, he just takes it further. Along with the growing catalogues of such labels as Mille Plateaux, Perlon (Which Akufen has contributed his 'Quebec Nightclub' 12"), and Kompakt, this album is a shining example of how house doesn't have to be uniform.