Customer Reviews

Nothing Lost

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

 

 

Arne Van Petegem has put together another fine electronic album, and brought along several of his friends from the electronic music scene for cameo appearances.

The album has several high points. "Couches in Alleys," featuring the Postal Service's Ben Gibbard, is an electronic indie-pop delight. The album's closing song, "Make it Mine," clocking in around 9 minutes, features several of Petergem's collaborators, and makes excellent background music. The first track, "Misguided," features some variety, using a slightly harder beat, and rhymes provided by Alias.

Cameos on the album include Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie/The Postal Service, Markus Acher of the Notwist, Valerie Trebeljahr of Lali Puna, and Andrew Kenny of American Analog Set, and "Alias". If you are a fan of any of these artists, I strongly recommend that you check out Styrofoam's latest entry, "Nothing's Lost".

This album is suberb. Anyone can listen to most of the tracks at Morr's website at http://www.morrmusic.com

There are so many special guests on this album. I cant stop listening to Couches In Alleys. Ben's voice is awesome...its like an electronic deathcab song but not like the postal service.

Anyway I saw styrofoam at the morr fest a couple weeks ago and he played his whole set with the guy from the go find.

great stuff....

Stryofoam is Arne Van Petegem, a Belgian. He is associated with the Brussels club called Club Ancienne Belgique. Petegem was able to select a bunch of artists to work with. He chose Markus (of The Notwist), Andrew Kenny (of American Analogue Set), and Bent van Looy (of Das Pop). This record became like a This Mortal Coil for now. Other artists joined in: mostly notably Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie) and Alias (Anticon) and Valerie Trebeljahr (Lali Puna). This record encompasses electronic music, hiphop and indie rock. Due to some of the people involved, it sounds like a new record by Lali Puna and/or The Postal Service. It is a very satisfactory record. Some of these collaboration albums don't work, but this one does. It's like a merger between Fischerspooner and Wire. It's a relaxing album. There are psychedelic and acid sounds. This is one of the best electronic albums of the past year.

Gently refining his already accessible electronic-pop into the most radio ready incarnation yet, Styrofoam still seems to come up short of great work, producing a few standout tracks and a majority of pleasant emo-electro generic-isms.

I first heard of Styrofoam on an indie music channel hosted by Dish Network (fancy that!) They played Couches in Alleys (featuring Ben Gibbard from Death Cab For Cutie), then I knew I had to FIND the full-length album. Actually, I've only been able to find this album online (Best Buy, Circuit City, Hastings, etc...no one had it in stock, some didn't even have it in their database period).

Experimental and emotional, it's hard to classify a particular genre for Styrofoam (although my computer is automatically calling it Electronica). Very ambient, great for relaxing.

Favorite tracks (in no particular order):

Misguided

Beequeen

Your Eyes Only

Front to Back

Safe + Broken

Anything

Make it Mine

the opening rap antics can come off as a bit too "linkin' park" which i found almost annoying until the hook came in to redeem, then the more you listen to it and accept if for what it is, it fuses into a nice solid track that has become a favorite. as for the rest of the album, it feels like steping into a foggy dream with the color slowly changing.

unfortunately, i have to add that i expected quite a bit more out of this album, instead it just hangs around, which is probably on purpose.

Hard to describe as it is a mix of several elements. It has more to it than ambient music but is not dance by any means. It is a good find.

this album has potential, the more it's heard. but what's up with the cheesy rap antics used on the first track? it just seems outta place, destroying the perception for the rest of the album. fortunately, the remaining tracks make up for this abomination.