Category: Reviews

The perfect millennial album for millennials. The Wait But Why of records. Biting, witty, and ultimately completely shallow and empty. Just like us.

This is simply the most impressed I’ve ever been with an album following a single listen and this is keeping in mind I’m stressed the fuck out and in the midst of a midlife crisis at the ripe old age of eighteen.

Although all the most important people are nineteen and our emotions are in check sometimes but sometimes they aren’t, I’ll try not to fall in love with the first cute girl I’ve met.

I’ll try and I’ll fail and then try again and escape the negligent love which has us still searching, always sober, always aching, always heading towards mass suicide, occult figurines.

Indeed, all of Elephant 6 and all the bands I’ve never heard of or have heard of but never heard but still enough to name-drop, they all have a certain similarity – which does not mean they are individually unique, but rather they are part of a certain unique brotherhood. It’s for the best.

And even as we head for the worst, our worst is still far better than other’s best and that is not something that makes me feel compassion, but rather a certain hollow self-satisfaction because just because I’m better (off) than a lot of people doesn’t necessarily mean I’m satisfied with that as I’m never truly satisfied because I never ever settle but that spells out ‘unhappiness’ in blood in the snow because never settling means never being satisfied and that leads to other things because if you’re not satisfied, you’re not happy but you are intelligent and maybe I’d rather be sober and aching than inebriated and dulled because dulled means boring and I’m never boring because I’m so multi-faceted but that also means I’m diluted.

And no one is as special as they think they are and even the most special snowflakes melt. Is love worth living for or is living worth it if we find our lover? Come on chemicals.

This is the end. We were all moving on inertia anyway and now it’s all going to be over. We had our moments of highs and our moments of lows and the echoes are still there, a hat tip there, a knee-jerk there but it’s all getting so old. How do people not get bored of the same things – the familiarity of everything after a while is brutal – stagnation the most fetid sort of death.

And so we get up, push ourselves up and force ourselves to get out of the putrid warmth and faux comfort that we have grown accustomed to. There are still shadows of the things we loved here – but the real things are long gone. The things that remain are just reflections. And so we go because we know we must and we say…

Goodbye lovers and friends. And even if things have gotten a little stale, like living in the same neighborhood you’ve grown up since you were just a little child – it’s still more than a little sad and hard to go, to not turn around just one more time. And you know full-well that you will never ever return.

A glimpse at a rare side of the band. Interesting, fun to listen to, and even has ‘Pretty Forever’ which I haven’t seen anywhere else.

This is a band in transition, this is a band that’s just finding their footing for the first time. This is essentially the very beginning.

QOTD: Why does a run-of-the-mill Swedish house duo claim to adopt dadaist philosophies?

I’ve been following the efforts of Olle Corneer, Stefan Engblom and co. for quite a bit now, and this is their first real cohesive effort, which in itself is admirable. The mainstream electrohouse genre is not something that usually lends itself to full album efforts, and yet here we are.

Does the album hold its own for its entirety? Of course not, but it tries. Amongst super-hits like Kick Out the Epic Motherfucker, Feed the Dada, and Rolling Stones T-Shirt, we find a full album’s worth of house which naturally gets grating. But keeping in mind that the band is not meant to be taken seriously and the fact that this is still more listenable than similar efforts from entirely too serious bands like Daft Punk, this isn’t half-bad for the genre.

Commendable.

And what are the rules of dada, just for the record?
* Never bring your brain to a rave.
* Doing the ‘airpiano’ on stage while looking up in the air? Never.
The ‘heart sign’ with both of your hands?
FUCK NO.
* Tickle-punch-tickle-combo. Happy Violence!
* Cheating is winning.
* If you’re stuck, there’s only one solution: go harder.
* If you only need one word to describe a song in the studio…then it’s done!
* No bananas on the rider? Then we do our two hour deep/tech house set. Everything under 118 BPM.
* PLUR = Potassium Lust Unity Rage
* Arriving beautiful – leaving ugly.
* Beautiful music = boring music. At least today.
* Never BBQ before a gig.
* If you don’t want to get wet, you don’t want to have fun.
* Bass don’t cry.
* Changing underwear at the club is cheating. Even for the members of Dada Life.
* Never bring your brain into the club.
* Art should be loud as fuck.

Noted.

What on earth could I have in common with Rakim Mayers? I was sort of punk rock, he grew up on hip-hop. Seriously though, there are very few ways that we could have more disparate lives.

Growing up in Harlem, Rakim definitely had a difficult childhood – losing his father when he was sent to prison, losing his brother, there must have certainly been trauma. Whereas another might have thrown in the towel and resigned himself to a life of mediocrity, Rakim decided to rise to the challenge.

At eight he was already rapping and the death of Ricky when Rakim was only thirteen inspired him to take rapping more seriously. But the street cred is genuine here; Rakim truly knew the streets and was involved in the felonious. Is this something he seems proud of, something that he flaunts like certain other artists? No and this seems to only confirm the all-too-real genuineness of his subject matter. Yes, he is currently disconnected from that former lifestyle by some $3 million and a successful contract but I can’t imagine it’s that far in his thoughts. Then again, I won’t ever know what that’s like. But now, everything is different, and yet there are still traces of the origins there.

Moving forward, A$AP Rocky respects his past.

All that in mind, the beats here are perfectly produced, atmospheric an understated but also all-powerful. The swagger is potent, the subject is real.

And yet what is it that we share? Sure our visions, driving forces and circumstances are vastly different, perhaps polar but what is it that the end desire is? It’s a passion for fashion, money, it’s an undefined but definite feeling of success, the feeling that you achieved something. A desire to achieve something to brag about and then proceed to do so. We both understand the appeal of a $1000 Brunello Cucinelli sweater and the feeling of not having to worry about buying it because the amount is so little in comparison to the amount in our bank accounts.

Sure, the album might feel over-long at times, a little repetitive, maybe not even the most original, but it is a fun record, a certain testament, a challenge which shouts “look at me, I made it.” And why not? I get it.