Tuesday 13 March 2012

Stereo MC's [Double Bubble]

I played this just over a year ago [25th February 2011], and marvelled then at how 'different' this album sounded, it was new territory for me, and yet at the same time i was really excited that i was opening up a new Pandora's box of strange sounds, that i was sure i would fall in love with, well one year on i can say this album has taken on some new deeper appreciation, some of the tracks which i liked a lot the first time around, i'm now beginning to love, especially the early tracks on disc one, and the music?, well it's hard to pigeonhole, there's certainly a sense of Rap Music in there, but they're very electronically dancey too, who cares about definitions, if it's great music it's great!.

The Stereo MC's are an English Band, formed in 1985, they started out more in the Britpop explosion, but i guess they're more like The Beastie Boys, or The Prodigy, this is like one and a half discs long, the bonus disc is less than 20 minutes, in fact both discs could have fitted on a single disc, so why the double album?, the album came out in 2008, the front cover is truly excellent, a simple set of rings, but subtly coloured to give the impression of 3D, also they have a tendency to feel that they're spinning!, a great simple idea, i like shapes.

Well the tracks i liked the best are 1, 3-4 & 11, last time i felt that track 11 'Human' was the track that caught my attention the most, on this listen i guess it's the opener 'Get On It', nice intro, giving off a nice beat, but it's when the vocals come in [0:16+] that it just blossoms out into something more atmospheric, and the keyboard synths bubble and scream, now that's a lovely slamming vibe!, the chorus goes 'get on it, get off it...', those keyboard synths, now they're infectious, after the third chorus the recording controls are pushed into overdrive [2:17-2:28], with a great big 'wooooo' at the end of it, and then a moment of magic as a real hard slamming echo beat follows [2:28-2:42], with a nice tribal drumming beat, at the end there's a fade-out with 'flarnham calling' [that's what it sounds like], while a jangly telephone bell rings [3:29+], the whole thing is fantastic!, and it's only one of many on the album, i need to check out some more Stereo MC's albums.

Here's the Stereo MC's playing 'Get On It' on YouTube.