Originally
published on isnotwas.com
This CD must be confusing the
hell out of some music storeowners-especially if they're not hip
to down tempo.
Puccini composed an opera called
"Tosca," so I wouldn't be at all surprised if Tosca's
debut album "Opera" ends up in classical music bins
at the odd record shop here and there. Boy is that opera lover
gonna surprised when he takes a closer look at the back cover
and sees the first track on "Opera" is entitled "Fuck
Dub."
Tosca is a side project by Richard
Dorfmeister (one half of the musically illustrious Austrian duo
Kruder and Dorfmeister) and Rupert Huber. If you enjoyed K&D
Sessions, you will undoubtedly enjoy the path Tosca have taken
with "Opera."
Fuck Dub Part 1&2 consists
largely of a sample of a woman singing "You can't go"
in an eternal loop intertwined with a man singing, well, "duh-da,
duh-da, duh-da, di-dang, dang" repeatedly. Set that against
a groovy bass line and some nice drums and you actually get an
insanely listenable nine-minute piece of music.
The second track "Amelianbad" last sonly 1:28 and samples
some odd conversation: one fellow tells us, "Actually, if
I get the money for a Hawaiian vacation, I'm gonna take it."
Then an Elvis-like voice intones, "Help me, momma, don't
you hurt me momma," and we get some more "duh-da, dang
dang" scat singing. "Worksong" then bursts onto
the scene with some gloriously funky bass and simple, catchy lyrics.
"Opera" is all over
the place-in a good way. It's rich-alert even-with samples snippets
of conversation. It's probably one of the few CDs I have which
has me laughing as well as nodding along as I listen.
"Ladies and gentlemen"
is a 20 second track that gets me smiling and introduces "Chocolate
Elvis," the lyrics of which basically consist of "I
said shake it don't break it" and "a whole lotta shakin'."
If the next track, "Ambient
Emily," provides an interesting 8 minutes under the headphones,
it also slows things down too much because it's largely a collection
of sound bytes with virtually no musical background. It's atmospheric,
certainly, (hence the "ambient" in the title), but it's
little more than a lot of interminable, largely incomprehensible
whispering which comes off to this listener like aural filler.
That said, it's not so much poorly constructed as out of place
on this album.
Fortunately, Opera continues in
fine spirits with "Postgirl" and "Listen my friend,"
another amusing spoken word interlude. The album finishes on the
upswing with smoothly aggressive beats and samples on "Buona
Sarah."
Check this one out for sure-even
if you have to hunt for it in the classical music section.
Robert Stribley
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