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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
When You Unravel the Secret Will Travel, January 29, 2007
I've dabbled with audio mixing software a bit - everything has blended and congealed from simple drum-machine programs and audio mixing software to something between the two. Programs where you can create beats, mix in found and recorded sounds, compose melodies using sampled audio waves controlled by virtual synthesizers represented by virtual keyboards and virtual buttons on virtual grids to create virtual symphonies. When playing around with wonderous software, and when listening to others's music, I often notice two common problems: 1) everything I hear sounds like it could have been mixed on a 16-bit Super Nintendo, and 2) it is too easy to get into a 'drag and drop' frame of mind, creating slightly disjointed pieces lacking the unity and cohesive nature of an actually practiced and performed song.
This album has gotten a lot of hype in the last two weeks or so. Also, it's tough to find a review of Menomena that doesn't include a description of how the music is created - the band uses mixing software to compose songs, then learns those songs on instruments before recording them. This description seems like a gimmick, and at first I thought it was lazy criticism, as the discussion of the creation of music can easily distract from the music itself.
But that's it; that's really the best way to describe the feel of this album. The drumbeats are actually performed and recorded, not mixed on a beat machine. But they are often influenced by that skippy, counter-intuitive nature of techno beats. Layered melodies and counter-melodies come across as their own units, adding layers but not often playing or reacting off of each other like well-recorded live music. Somewhat random instruments layer over each other, adding more and more sounds that seem more plopped in than cohesive and integral parts of the recordings.
But the result isn't bad at all; in fact, it's very smart and thought-provoking. The melodies work well together and moods shift beautifully through each song and throughout the album as a whole. The piles and piles of sound that come and go actually lend to an overall feel. You know how you feel when listening to a really well produced Beck recording, where everything seem piled on and random waves of noise seem to fall together just right? It's something like that (as opposed to a bad Beck recording, where piles of noise get all jumbled up and are just, well, noisy).
So they brag of creating songs on a computer, then learning them and performing them. But that really isn't the end of the story. The thing that critics seem to miss is that these songs aren't live performances at all. They are clearly the work of hours of studio magic - weeks and months of recording different parts, different beats, different sounds, then mixing them back together. The live performances might be a cohesive interpretation of songs they mixed from found sounds, but this end result is just as remixed as the music was in the compositional phase.
The majority of music produced today is just that - a remix of itself - bits of recorded sounds snipped apart, twisted by processing, and put back together in a final, produced manner. This record makes you aware of this fact, in a most beautiful, moody, though-provoking way.
I will certainly be watching this great band for years to come.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Uncover your ears, uncover your eyes, it's MENOMENA!, March 10, 2007
"Friend or Foe", the latest offering from the band Menomena is a glorious trip from start to finish. Not a weak track on here as I'm sure you'll have a different favorite from week to week. "Air Aid", "Rotten Hell", "Evil Bee", "Boyscout'n", "Ghostship", "Running", "Wet & Rusting" & "West" are all favorites. You can easily hear the effect of influences like TV on the Radio, Radiohead, & Home. They really took their time with this album and it shows, as these are highly evolved songs. If you're a fan of straight up verse chorus verse song structures then you may want to look elsewhere as these songs constantly keep you guessing with change of pace, instrumentation and overall structure. You'll hear saxophones, piano, and even whistling along with traditional instruments in the span of the 12 tracks & 48 minutes that end up going down extra smooth.
If you're a fan of cd packaging then this will surely float your boat beyond what you hear on the disc. I won't even attempt to explain it in detail but suffice it to say the sleeve includes die-cuts & intricate artwork. If you're considering just getting the mp3's of this album, you really need to reconsider for the packaging. It's still early, but I'm already sure this album will end up in my top 3 at the end of the year.
Please get this album, as I'm sure if this description interests you, you'll fall in love with this album like I did.
We also need to continue to encourage some of the lesser known great artists out there by purchasing their music and passing the word.
Happy listening!
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Big Sound - Complicated & Interesting, March 20, 2008
As a lover of musical innovation and interesting technology this seemed a beautiful integration of software (similar to 'automix' but apparently much more complex & designed by them) and too many ideas. A beauty in the physical sense too... the CD packaging is very intricate and impressive... cut-outs and colors in secret windows that intrigue.
Musically for fans of The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev or perhaps The Earlies. Big clattering (sometimes startling!) drum sound, perfect piano parts, unexpected saxophones, strange group singing (think 'Clap your Hands say Yeah' or 'TV on the Radio') a million ideas, many stylistic / tempo changes within each song (has the song finished?) - but it all flows and makes sense on repeated plays - must admit I wasn't sure after the first listen... but aren't they sometimes eventually the best?
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