Customer Reviews

The Now Sound Redesigned

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

 

 

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"The dated but delicious sunshine pop of a little known 1960's family act called The Free Design just got a makeover from the good folks at Light in the Attic Records, and the result is one of the best, most unexpected albums of the year. Using the lilting melodies and lush arrangements of the original tracks as a base, 21 "now sound" performers get busy reinterpreting, updating, and just generally playing with The Free Design's catalog in a devoted but totally inventive way.

Now keep in mind, The Free Design was a kind of real-live Partridge Family: two brothers and two sisters from upstate New York who formed a baroque folk group that became popular on the Greenwich Village coffeehouse circuit, so their music is super...uh, white. Maybe that's why it fares best in the hands of urban stylists like Dangermouse, Murs, and Peanut Butter Wolf, who furnish edge and counterpoint to all those too-immaculate harmonics... a little bitta coffee for all that cream.

Koushick and Dudley Perkins give "Don't Cry Baby" a super cool urban sunshine sound--like Sesame Street for grown-ups--while Kid Koala and Dynamite D. put down slow beats and scratching so good in "An Elegy," it'll make you throw the phrase "trip-hop" around like it's 1995. Indie types like Stereolab, Caribou, and Super Furry Animals make a strong showing as well, and the European outfit Mellow trip out expertly on a remix of the unbelievably titled non-parody by The Free Design, "Kites are Fun."

Best of all, everyone here steers clear of the overweening irony and camp that has turned so many tribute albums into little more than novelties, and hipsters though some may be, they're too busy taking this gentle music seriously to bother posturing. Who knows? Maybe cynicism had become so de rigueur that it got boring and innocence became intersting again. The music did too."

When does the underground go overground? For years, The Free Design's original LPs have been sought-after collector's items -- with no small reason. The intricate harmonies and careful songwriting have garnered praise on their own, not to mention the use of their component parts in hip-hop circles. So here, on _The Now Sound Redesigned_, the Free Design gets a modern makeover from both the hip-hop and indie communities. So while Madlib and Peanut Butter Wolf give some uptempo breaks to "Where Do I Go" and "Umbrellas," respectively, Stereolab and The High Llamas bring in their own modular pop sensibilities, even as the track drifts into an odd atonality. Styrofoam, on the other hand, go for a more straightforward rework, but with more droning. And there's some bubblegum self-referentialism in Chris Geddes' chopping of "2002 - A Hit Song." Sure, there a few lackluster mixes (particularly the Sharpshooter's version of "Don't Turn Away"), but the hazy psychedelia of Mellow's "Kites Are Fun" or the Nobody's swirling "Girls Alone" quickly pave over those tracks. Danger Mouse and Murs put a modern political spin on "To a Black Boy," telling the story of Marcus Dixon, and unfairly imprisoned young man from Georgia. But some of the musical contrasts are stark here: the bubbliness of "The Proper Ornaments" (as fiddled with by Super Furry Animals) with the somber "An Elegy," (scratched up by Kid Koala). Caribou ends ths album with his version of "Dorian Benediction," which swirls in neo-electronic folk psychedelia -- something I'm sure the Free Design themselves would have appreciated.

I have mixed feelings about this album. When I first heard about the album and saw Caribou, Super Furry Animals, and Stereolab on the tracklist, I was thrilled. The first song that I heard from the album was 'Don't Turn Away' by Sharpshooters, which is my favorite track on the album. I read that the remix just does not match up with the original work of The Free Design. I personally disagree; Although I respect The Free Design, the original album is simply TOO flowery for my taste. Thus, the mix takes the elements from Free Design that I do enjoy and mixes it with a range of other complex melodies and sounds. The track 'Umbrellas' by Peanut Butter Wolf did nothing for me, and the short Nobody tracks of dialog seemed a bit silly, transforming the album from something eclectic and rare to something trendy like Handsome Boy Modeling School's "White People". '2002: A Hit Song' and 'I Found Love' are very fun songs, but both border on being annoying. Overall, I would say that the album is a disappointment. However, 'Don't Turn Away', 'Dorian Benediction', 'An Elegy' and 'The Proper Ornaments' are pretty memorable tracks.

The Free Design were a somewhat lesser-known sunshiney psychedelic pop band from the late 60s, and last year the Light In The Attic label decided to pair the recordings of the group with some of the more well-known artists and remixers of the current day. The idea turned out to be a good one, as many of the remixers and artists had heard of the group and some even wondered how they'd rework the music of a favored obscuro pop group.

The Now Sound Redesigned is the CD release that collects the whole series of remixes and sequences them along with some interludes and other tracks that didn't find their way onto the original releases for a nineteen track, almost hourlong album of mixes that take the flowery group and turn them into everything from instrumental hip hop to drawn-out free jazz. The release opens with an intro track that actually does a pretty good job of explaining the group in a a short amount of time before Madlib drops an excellent remix of "Where Do I Go" that somehow keeps the original track fairly intact while at the same time transforming it into a rumbling beatfest. Peanut Butter Wolf goes mashup style on "Umbrellas," mixing in some Steve Miller Band and other tracks alongside the original Free Design effort for something that mostly works.

The Stereolab/High Llamas (each at times have sounded like the logical progression of the Free Design) version of "Harve Daley Hix," which layers in dense harpsichord and pinging electronics alongside the original, while Chris Geddes of Belle & Sebastian turns "2002 - A Hit Song" into a cheesy 4/4 dancefloor track that somehow works quite well. Styrofoam teams up with Sarah Shannon on the warm IDM-pop remake of "I Found Love" while Kid Koala and Dynomite D work "An Elegy" into a stuttering hip-hop/jazz beast that like the Madlib remix keeps much of the original track around while taking it somewhere completely different.

The Biz Markie-ish re-imagining of "Don't Cry Baby" by Koushik and Dudley Perkins is funny but feels a bit out-of-place on the release, while the Danger Mouse & Murs reworking of "To A Black Boy" completely breaks the flow of the release with its dark production and heavy lyrical content from Murs. Fortunately, Caribou provides a gorgeous, epic nightcap on the release with the nearly nine-minute free jazz reworking of "Dorlan Benediction," mixing melodica, chimes, vocals from the original track, and just about everything else as it feels like a hippie-style jam around the campfire. If you've never heard of The Free Design and are looking for somewhere to start, you should pick up one of the re-released versions of their original albums, but if you've already discovered the group and are looking for some (mostly) inspired remixes of their work, The Now Sound Redesigned is an entertaining little release.

(from almost cool music reviews)

Wow people...who would of though that anyone could nail down the soft-psych easy touch of this obscure group The Free Design?

But, in this remix album, there isn't one track which doesn't pay homage to what the Free Design were all about! That lovable jumping/flying/rolling/zesty feeling of life that we all love to feel. It's really cool to hear what blunted out Madlib does with "Where Do I Go", along Stereolab's totally freak out Free Design medley! And Kid Koala & Dynomite D's mix of "An Elegy" about made we weep for our lost brethren of war! This is one you need to pick up!

From the moment I heard Stereolab I was blown away. Their use of harmonies and exotic-retro musicality seemed so unique...until I stumbled upon the Free Design. This is so the source of Sterolab (they even penned a song of the same title). The Free Design never saw commercial success in their time, which is a shame, They were way ahead of their time, and create such subtle beauty without irony yet there is a strangeness just below the surface that is very seductive. This cd is a tribute of sorts by other fans of the band, bands influenced and who build upon the free design sound. It is not merely a "cover" but rather a re-interpretation of free design, a loving regeneration that is a great cd on its own. Of course Sterolab (with the High Llammas) are on it, as are the Super Furry Animals,Mellow, Caribou, and others. This is not a good introduction to the Free Design, but rather a great tribute to and re-appropriation of Free Design aesthetics. It is by fans for fans.

I was introduced to the Free Designs music via their
1967 debut album "Kites Are Fun" in the mid-nineties and
they are one of my favorite pop groups. However, the
remix moniker is somewhat dubious. All these new fashioned
mixes are just fragments of vocal and musical parts
cut and pasted to beats and electronic noise. I like re-
mixes that take the actual original song and then add
new keyboard or drum on top of them to give them more of a
contemporary finish. Nothing here is danceable and with
the exception of maybe one or two, they give me a headache.
Very sad, because this compilation is more widely available then the groups actual "original" work." I call it Trance lo-fi at best.