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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Texas born Matthew Dear has spent the last decade creating a vast aray of wonderful music in various guises & genres, but it was with 2007's 'Asa Breed' that he really hit upon a sound that was all his own. 'Asa Breed' marked the moment that he stepped up to the mic and decided to produce 'pop' hits for the masses (albeit with techno vibes still bubbling beneath the surface) and he was mostly successfull. Three years on and he has released the much darker 'Black City', and it is a monumental release.
Dear has often talked about his musical influences such as Talking Heads, David Bowie, Nitzer Ebb & Adonis, and all of these manage to leave their fingerprints all over this release, most notably the art-house leanings of 'Berlin Trilogy' era Bowie. The album is by no means an easy listen and it's intricate nature may take a while to seep into your conscious, Dear's music is deep & layered and his vocal range is very limited, so some tracks can sound a little distant on first listen but give the record some quality time and it's simple beauty will begin to flourish & command your attention.
The album deals with many dark & serious matters (most pertaning to sex). Tracks such as 'You Put A Spell On Me' & 'Slowdance' manage to leer into the animal nature that inhabits all us homosapiens whilst also delivering the type of tub-thumping beats usually reserved for only the most salacious of night clubs. In this respect I was frequently reminded of an alternative reality Jarvis Cocker fronted New Order hybrid (or to put it more simply, the recent LCD Sounsytem record). Other highlights include 'Soil To Seed' which manages to deliver more pop hooks within it's short sub-3-minute length than a million X Factor contestents could manage in a life time, 'Little People' which sounds like a lost disco classic (best prepare those old day-glo sticks for the live shows) and the beautiful piano-led finale 'Gem', which gives the record a real emotional finish.
This is a wonderful record which demands repeated listens and in a year already full to the brim with great releases, this may just be the best yet.
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENEDED.
Dear has often talked about his musical influences such as Talking Heads, David Bowie, Nitzer Ebb & Adonis, and all of these manage to leave their fingerprints all over this release, most notably the art-house leanings of 'Berlin Trilogy' era Bowie. The album is by no means an easy listen and it's intricate nature may take a while to seep into your conscious, Dear's music is deep & layered and his vocal range is very limited, so some tracks can sound a little distant on first listen but give the record some quality time and it's simple beauty will begin to flourish & command your attention.
The album deals with many dark & serious matters (most pertaning to sex). Tracks such as 'You Put A Spell On Me' & 'Slowdance' manage to leer into the animal nature that inhabits all us homosapiens whilst also delivering the type of tub-thumping beats usually reserved for only the most salacious of night clubs. In this respect I was frequently reminded of an alternative reality Jarvis Cocker fronted New Order hybrid (or to put it more simply, the recent LCD Sounsytem record). Other highlights include 'Soil To Seed' which manages to deliver more pop hooks within it's short sub-3-minute length than a million X Factor contestents could manage in a life time, 'Little People' which sounds like a lost disco classic (best prepare those old day-glo sticks for the live shows) and the beautiful piano-led finale 'Gem', which gives the record a real emotional finish.
This is a wonderful record which demands repeated listens and in a year already full to the brim with great releases, this may just be the best yet.
VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENEDED.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
There are advantages to having dissociative identity disorder. Matthew Dear, synth pop crooner with the voice no one would ever wish on a synth pop crooner, sounds like no one else. Because he spends more energy making things than slavishly listening to antecedents--Brian Eno, David Bowie, Depeche Mode, OMD--what comes out is just as idiosyncratic. As DJ, producer, frontman, Matthew Dear, Audion, Jabberjaw and False, he just doesn't have time for anything else.
Black City, his newest album, is the same as his previous work under his own name. It's synth pop. Sort of. It's pop music. Maybe. But mostly it's just Matthew Dear. The songs have the same sort of weird grain to them as something from DJ Koze or Pepe Bradock: It's instantly identifiable but almost impossible to pin down. Most often there's a queasiness to the songs on Black City: "Shortwave" slinks along, slow-motion lasers lazily firing away in the background along with a "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" from Dear that never quite makes it to the fore. "Slowdance" plods along at 90 BPM and ends with Dear doing doo-wop with himself.
In the press leading up to the album, Ghostly has emphasized the darkness of the album. How "Black City can't be found on any map. It's a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives." I don't know about that, really, because the only lyrics I made out clearly and immediately on first listen were the lines: "I'm...I'm a monkey / Frozen in my monkey dream / It's time...time to monkey / Lost in our monkey sleep." But maybe that's what they mean. If that's the only thing you can understand, you're in a place where understanding isn't all that important anyway.
I find that Matthew Dear's work, at its best, is all about the same things that his best dance music is about: Plotting out a strange and engrossing rhythm that's going to hold up to repeat listening. To this end, Black City is just as good as Asa Breed. A weird sort of funk is pervasive, grooves that are fine at first, better later and amazing a month after that. Like Asa, it's bursting-at-the-seams with ideas and sounds that take time to marinate. While Dear doesn't have the time to slow down, Black City offers you a good reason why you should.
Words - Todd L. Burns
Black City, his newest album, is the same as his previous work under his own name. It's synth pop. Sort of. It's pop music. Maybe. But mostly it's just Matthew Dear. The songs have the same sort of weird grain to them as something from DJ Koze or Pepe Bradock: It's instantly identifiable but almost impossible to pin down. Most often there's a queasiness to the songs on Black City: "Shortwave" slinks along, slow-motion lasers lazily firing away in the background along with a "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" from Dear that never quite makes it to the fore. "Slowdance" plods along at 90 BPM and ends with Dear doing doo-wop with himself.
In the press leading up to the album, Ghostly has emphasized the darkness of the album. How "Black City can't be found on any map. It's a composite, an imaginary metropolis peopled by desperate cases, lovelorn souls, and amoral motives." I don't know about that, really, because the only lyrics I made out clearly and immediately on first listen were the lines: "I'm...I'm a monkey / Frozen in my monkey dream / It's time...time to monkey / Lost in our monkey sleep." But maybe that's what they mean. If that's the only thing you can understand, you're in a place where understanding isn't all that important anyway.
I find that Matthew Dear's work, at its best, is all about the same things that his best dance music is about: Plotting out a strange and engrossing rhythm that's going to hold up to repeat listening. To this end, Black City is just as good as Asa Breed. A weird sort of funk is pervasive, grooves that are fine at first, better later and amazing a month after that. Like Asa, it's bursting-at-the-seams with ideas and sounds that take time to marinate. While Dear doesn't have the time to slow down, Black City offers you a good reason why you should.
Words - Todd L. Burns
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Great electro-pop, for much want of a better word than pop. If you love ASA Breed then buy this too.
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