Clever and Smart- Filtadelic/Ricardo Villalobos- 808 The Bassqueen
[Lo-Fi, 2003]
{10.0}


Listen. There’s no shame in not having heard this before. Sure, it’s a reissue in a series called Lo-Fi Stereo Classics, but just because you didn’t hear it on the first go round, doesn’t mean that you’re hopelessly behind the times. But let me say this: if you don’t have either of these tracks now and you call yourself a fan of melodic deep house, then there is shame. And it’s all in your court.
[Todd Burns]


Christopher Willits- Little Edo 7"
[Nibble Records, 2003]
{8.0}


Do lush melodies belong with dissonant, digital guitar fragmentation? Well, why not? Willits creates music using his guitar and his laptop, and while he's not alone in doing this, he might be alone in being able to transform these digitally fragmented sounds into catchy melodies (well, he and Fennesz). "Little Edo" and its partner, "Your Face Looks Like a 15th Century Turkish Carpet," manage to transform these fragments into a nice, upbeat melody, complete with falsetto harmonies that wouldn't be out of place on a Donald Fagen record.
[Michael Heumann]


Lionel Marchetti - Danse La Monagne 3"
[Chloë Recordings, 2003]
{7.9}


Experimental music can be fickle, so releasing a recording seven years after the fact takes no small amount of courage and I respect Mr. Marchetti for offering this up. That said, the effects of time can definitely be felt here, but really only in that this piece is so much darker than recent Marchetti works. It manages to simultaneously be some of the most intriguing and disturbing musique concrete pieces I've heard. Marchetti blends the sounds of Japanese students practicing an ancient sword technique into a horrific collage that brings to mind the Spanish Inquisition or colonial witch trials more than ancient Japan. Sounds rotate between the battlefield and the torture chamber for twelve minutes of vivid imagery with dense drones underneath.
[Mike Shiflet]


Wevie Stonder- Kenyan Harry EP
[Skam, 2003]
{6.5}


A beautific orchestra opens this new EP from Wevie Stonder, but is soon discarded in favor of the shuffling lo-fi jaunt of “Lady’s Leg Licked”. The Skam imprint is soon done right, though, by “Cheese Rider” which marries vintage Squarepusher stutter and an intense interest in the melodic. After an uninspired interlude, we are met again by a send-up of the anti-folk of the Moldy Peaches. Overall, it’s the same old territory for the pranksters- eviscerating genres and deflating overblown idols, but when they do it so easily, one wonders what they might produce if they took it a bit more seriously themselves.
[Todd Burns]