Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wholesale of the Century, 17 Oct 2000
By A Customer
Six months ago was released one of the most daring albums ever recorded. Echoboy's Volume One was a melting pot of sounds, genres and ideas. Richard Warren, the man behind Echoboy, full-time wholesaler in noise pollution, is now back with Volume Two. Once again, guitars, drum machines, samplers and other ill-behaved machines fight for power. Not in a million years would anyone believe one man could be responsible for such chaos. But quite frankly, this is a very well organised chaos. If everything seems to go wrong, it is actually because everything is at the right place. Warren grew up listening to rock, but soon discovered that there was more to music than the traditional voice/guitar/bass/drums pattern. Volume One and Two are the result of his investigations, into a world where punk and techno walk hand in hand. Imagine the Clash covering Sigue Sigue Sputnik, and you have Telstar Recovery. Now, keep on playing: Kraftwerk featuring Simple Mind on Make The City The Sound; the Cocteau Twins playing funky electronica, that'll be the brilliant Südwsestfunk No.5... well I think you're getting the hang of it now! Echoboy is impossible to classify. Not rock, not pop, not electronic, and all that at the same time. Disconcerting, Volume Two is. Challenging, it is too. But more than anything, it is the work of a very clever man, absorbing everything, to regurgitate his own blasting mishmash. The future's bright; the future is Echboy's.
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1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Vol.2, 6 Mar 2005
Echoboy returns with more drum machines, repetitive drones & bleeping noises. This time it's ever so slightly more grandiose. Still I doubt this, or Vol. 1 will ever go into the history books as one of the great albums ever made.
Unfortunately for me I purchased both Vol. 1 & 2 concurrently on the strength of the then single, Telstar Recovery, and the preceding Kit & Holly. Had I heard either one of those albums first, I would not have persecuted myself with the other.
Track 1 is, like vol. 1, an intro track with not much going for it, only this time it lasts even longer. Then we have Telstar Recovery, which I've grown to despise, thanks to the dire quality of the rest of the album. May I never hear another Echoboy song again.
Track 3 is incredible in the sense that it's even worse than Model 352, one of the stand-out atrocities from vol.1.
I must have listened to this album nigh on 20 times in the last 3 weeks yet I still can't remember any of the songs, I have to play it while I write this review. None are memorable.
There's nothing on this album that's different from Vol.1, they may as well have been combined to create one God awful album instead of two. Pray tell how Echoboy has matured/progressed/experimented/astonished with this second outing, because as far as I can see this may as well have been called Vol.1 the remixes.
Tracks 4,5,6,7,8 & 9, well, I don't even feel they are worth wasting my time on, in fact I should have just copied and pasted my review for Vol.1 as all we have here, once again, is repetitive, uninteresting instrumentals that go absolutely nowhere.
Echoboy - a poor man's Death in Vegas.
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5.0 out of 5 stars
So forgetable it is almost as if I had not even heard it!, 15 Sep 2000
THis second opus from Echoboy takes it cue form the NY avant guarde composers/ Sonic Youth art secne circa - late 1980's... it is more to do with the spaces between the music that the music itself, with the main protagonist achieving an almost unassaillable continuity of ideas moulded around the initial principle. 12 tracks, moulded effortlessly into each other, the concept of 'less is more' is dominant, to the extent that there is seemingly nothing going on. It is 72 minutes 16 seconds of pure quiet - he has effortlessly managed to make the listener fill in the gaps themselves - he has provided the canvas, you the listener have to imagine what he is attempting. It is a mighty breakthrough for the Nottingham Folk Scene. The main principle is carried through into the packaging also (I feel as though it ought to be mentioned). No bland CD with traditional plastic cover, or slab of coloured vinyl with home made sleeve. The 'less is more' principle is continued here and it is like there is almost nothing there - the packaging is invisible, and the product (CD or LP) itself is non-existant to the touch.- it truly is the best album I have heard this week.
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