Customer Reviews

The Re-Releases of The Un-Releases

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

 

 

Blurring the distinctions between art and slop, avant-garde and pop, album and compilation, "ReReleases" has the scope and humor missing from Radiohead's "Kid A" (even if it lacks that album's beauty). Not typically a fan of this type of music, Chicks on Speed caught me off guard with their Le Tigre via Atari Teenage Riot, Laurie Anderson and B-52's style of catchy pop hooks, state of the art technology, chainsaw-annoying noises and deadpan humor. A brilliant track like "Glamour Girl" (previously on "Chicks on Speed Will Save us All") might not stand up on its own, but following such ear-scraping songs as "Turn of the Century," "I Wanna Be a DJ" and their brilliant cover of "Gimme Back My Man," it comes off being both a brilliant satire of house music and a sincere celebration of it. The sprawling, homemade mix tape collage technique this album uses reminds me of albums as disparate as "The White Album" (the Beatles) and "Double Nickels on the Dime" (the Minutemen). I can only begin to wonder what these Chicks will be doing next.

Everything about The Re-Releases of The Un-Releases is unsettling at first: the weird cover, the even weirder liner notes, the at times brilliant retro-electropop, and some twenty minutes of pretentious knob-twiddling that rivals Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music as the most exasperating dreck in rock history. Add the fact that Chicks On Speed aren't musically talented at all, and you'd probably wonder why I give this album a four-star rating.

See, The Re-Releases of The Un-Releases takes a bit of effort. You have to give it a cursory listen, and sort out the garbage. When that's done, you have fifty minutes of thrilling, artsy, deadpan music. All the songs have similar characteristics: early eighties techno beats that echo Kraftwerk and Art Of Noise behind hoity-toity, droll, almost cold, vocals.

The best songs on the album are the covers, which should be no surprise. The Chicks On Speed versions of Cracker's 'Euro-Trash Girl' and the B-52's tunes 'Gimme Back My Man' and 'Song For A Future Generation' overflow with dry humour. Best of all the covers is their version of the German punk band Malaria's 'Kaltes Klares Wasser'. In this song, meaning 'Cold Clear water', it all comes together. The pulsing beats combine with the trio's supersultry spoken vocals, making it sound like if Nico narrated the Velvets' 'Venus In Furs'.

There are original compositions that are standouts as well, like the cacophonous 'Turn Of The Century', 'Warm Leatherette', 'Yes I Do!', and especially, 'Glamour Girl'. The latter song is the closest thing to a potential mainstream hit Chicks On Speed have. With a bouncy disco beat and thrumming bassline that sounds like it came straight from Ibiza, the song parodies the plasticity of today's culture ("Burlesque attitude/nightttime thrills/she's a glamour girl/and her look just kills/beware of her kiss/she'll suck you in") in its portrait of said glamour girl with creepy, processed vocals.

But oh, this cd can annoy like no other. The filler, which sometimes is no more than a few seconds, serves no purpose whatsoever, other than to suddenly fill your room with static, screaming, and plain noise. And the liner notes are the most useless notes I've ever seen. Not that I've ever been able to read them...they're printed on the inside of the cd liner! Unless you want to totally destroy the cardboard cover, you'll never be able to read the entire thing, let alone know what song's what (this amazon page is the best source for song titles). Useless...K Records is to blame. What were they thinking?

If this was a vinyl LP, I'd give The Re-Releases of The Un-Releases a lower rating, but thanks to cd programming, it isn't so bad, and the album becomes very enjoyable. If you need help, try programming these tracks: 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 25, 29, 30, 31. Sit back and enjoy. And be afraid of the other tracks. Very Afraid.

This one doesn't know whether it wants to be filed under comedy or punk or electronica or WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT there it goes again! It's all the things I like best about music, it bends genres like hot pink pipecleaners, it turns stubborn housepets into attractive Thanksgiving centerpieces!

It's dense but fluffy, weird but accessible, threatening but fun stuff. It has the energy and euphoric gluesniffing insanity of '77 punk, the attack dog politics of Dead Kennedys before Jello turned into a hectoring fishwife, the sonic inventiveness of the likes of Add N to X, Nina Hagen and the Tigerbeat6 crew... these chicks, they've been to art school but they're not FROM art school, you know what I mean? There's also something going on here that reminds me of the best aspects of Subgenius before it turned into the insipid cult it was mocking.

Did I mention that it's hooky like crazy? Oh yes! It also works as pure pop music of an insidiously clever and catchy variety. Think of Check Your Head by the Beasties. Buy it today and enjoy a light, crispy cognitive dissonance. Listen to it on Really Good Headphones for the bonus revelation that it's got a lot of neat elusive little details, enough to keep any IDM head slow and fat and dumb and happy for yonks. Beware of Track 20 though--it will rip through your eardrums like kleenex.

L

The re-releases of the the un-releases is like audio LSD. COS have blended a medley of sounds and genres on one album that are very different but flow suprisingly well together. My only descerning criticism of this album is the really annoying yelps and screams that seem to sparatically jump up through the album. All shreeks aside, it has become a fast favorite in my music collection. I'd reccommend this album to people who enjoy new wave and electro-clash style music. :)

i thought le tigre was going to be a radical techno album. instead they were an indie rock band w/ keyboards. this is what i wanted le tigre to be. and now this is what i want all music to be. amazing.