OREGON STUDIO/MASTERING - Two Louies Magazine

Continued from page 8
the sounds right out of the box, without tweaking
them or editing them or somehow making them
“yours,” or otherwise fairly unrecognizable, your
material is going to sound just like all that other
stuff submitted to the Sonic Foundry website,
where, no doubt, the Dead Poets Society have, from
time to time, reigned supreme.
These very same loops can be heard in countless
television and radio advertisements— always
altered to the point of near imperceptibility, which
would seem to be the point, after all. To just throw
a few of these loops together over a frenetic (and,
generally) sampled beat and bassline is practically
void of any real imagination, but merely an exercise
in computer programming, while cutting and
pasting together chunks of musical information.
One could hire other people to do the fill in work
for him. “Uh, throw that Asian thing there. The
tabla and sitar there. Segue to a frenetic beat and
bassline and... cut it. Maybe toss in a piece of Grieg’s
‘In The Hall of the Mountain King,’ to display our
Classical training. I’m off to the gym.”
In order for the Dead Poets Society to
progress, they need to truly learn how to play instruments,
whereby they might learn valuable lessons
in harmony and dynamics, which will enrich
immensely their palette of musical colors and textures.
Secondarily, the employment of loops can
Page 20 - TWO LOUIES, January 2002
be extremely effective, but it is imperative that the
samples and loops are original, or at the very least
unique in the acquisition of their source material
(even if its bought or stolen), or modified in an
singular or original way.
There’s nothing wrong with what the Dead
Poets Society do. They appear to have their cadre
of fans and followers, but those people somehow
seem simply misguided or uninformed. As
Abraham Lincoln once said, “You can fool some
of the people some of the time...”
alpha_jerk— Headscope
Self-Produced
Now this is more like it! Here is a band
that uses aspects of Electronica to its
best advantage, creating atmospheric
moods that absolutely crackle with intense originality.
The difference here is that there are true
musicians in this band, in the respect that they really
know how to play instruments, as well as to
how operate equipment that generates sounds,
which they also do quite well.
Not the least of these musicians is vocalist
Krys No, whose notable feat is to manage to keep
up with the dense sound sculptures created by
Kevin Ellis on keys and guitar, and Niall Davids,
who contributes bass along other effects. Ellis
handles the sampling while Davids does the pro-
gramming. Drummer Allen Brown holds it all together,
laying down solid, rhythmic underpinnings,
often in conjunction with pre-programmed
rhythm tracks.
“Sundown” kicks off the set, driven by stuttering
arpeggiated keyboards and electronic sounding
drums, as No enters the sonic picture wailing
girlishly, like Belinda Carlisle doing Bjork. An interesting
combination. Middle Eastern themes run
through the shadowy “Bird In A War.” Ellis’ warbling
keyboard, is motivated by Brown’s powerfully
insistent drums and the subtle sound hand percussion
(although it may be electronically generated),
while Krys’ shouts echo in the abyss.
Alannis Morissette is No’s obvious vocal inspiration
on the live rendition of “Casseopia.”
Brown’s electronic kit generates the percussion on
“Lung Candy,” a great live electronic piece. “509”
moves in a completely different direction, with
brash snarling guitars galloping ahead as Krys
screams out in the din. But hidden veers more to-
ward straight electronica, with a variety of keyboard
tones generating the ambience. No handles
the vocal chores admirably, inflecting the melody
with mysterious, vaguely Eastern intonations and
slippery falsetto, before facing Mecca, shrieking as
the scene melts around her.
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