November 27th, 2006 12:32pm
You’ve Got Heaven Inside
Velella Velella “Brass Ass” – Velella Velella was pitched to me by my friend as an “indie Funkadelic,” but that’s not quite right –their slick grooves actually sound more like a live band hell bent on simulating the polyglot funk compositions of artists such as DJ Shadow, Luke Vibert, Daft Punk, and Prefuse 73. “Brass Ass” leans heavily on the after-midnight mood of DJ Shadow’s Entroducing, but as with all of the tracks on Velella Vellela’s MySpace page, it’s not so much a direct homage as much as the product of musicians who very likely came to funk indirectly via sample-based music, which is the case for a vast majority of people under the age of 30. Rather than get hung up on untangling the knot of infinite quotation and recycling of their genre in the post-sampling age, the band embrace impurity to tap into something deep by proxy. The vocals can be a bit candy-assed, but thankfully they err on the side of the extremely white soul of Phoenix more often than they drift into the imperialistic tweeness of the Go Team. (Click here for Velella Velella’s MySpace page.)
Jim Jones (featuring Max B) “Bright Lights, Big City” – Jim Jones’ best tracks tend to showcase the subtly plaintive quality of his voice, and deliver his garden variety street lyrics with a tone that suggests fearfulness rather than fearsomeness. “Bright Lights, Big City” sounds like a guy trying to find the silver lining in his paranoia, relishing the thrill of his stakes life as a way to balance out a sense of being trapped and overwhelmed by circumstances. The beat bears down him, and the half-whined, half-sung chorus by Max B reinforces the cycle of rationalizing the environment of menace that pushes him to become menacing himself. (Click here to buy it from Amazon.)
Elsewhere: Oh, Zarf! Is this how you impress Mike Patton?
Also: I don’t mean to spoil things for anyone, but this is what I’m getting for everyone on my Christmas shopping list this year.