Thursday, January 02, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Listening Station

Various Artists

Ministry of Sound: The 2003 Annual (Australia)

England's Ministry of Sound isn't so much a nightclub as it is a brand, and world domination has been on its agenda since the international nightlife scene went bonkers for trance and superstar DJs a few years back. Lately, it's been flexing most of its muscle on our shores--to marginal success, at best. It`s trying too hard to tell us what we like, or should like, for that matter. Its American version of its yearly Annual compilation--envisioned and mixed by DJ Sammy, who broke into the mainstream with his serotonin-overload remake of Bryan Adams' ballad "Heaven"--was largely a snooze-fest, thanks to its dependence on commercial American house (hey, where's the deep, "Body and Soul" stuff?) and Eurotrance (lotsa Tiesto).

However, on the Australian version, mixed by native turntablists Mark Dynamix and UltraSun, MOS gives us a superior primer of electronic music in 2002, and its strength is its spirit. Unconcerned with genre themes and excited by alternative interpretations, this livelier and more expensive import is worth the money if you're looking for a proper sum-up of last year's dance floor anthems. Granted, 2002 wasn't electronic dance music's year. But there are all sorts of gems here--some that have surely eluded us Yanks--that your body will not resist jerking along with, from soul singer Angie Stone's gorgeous "I Wish I Didn't Miss You" and Underworld's sublime "Two Months Off," to the progressive funk drive of Shiny Disco Balls' "Who Da Funk" and the hip-hop transcendence of the Streets' "Weak Becomes Heroes." Given the variety of sounds here, the consistency is rather stunning. Not too commercial, not too subversive, this Aussie vision of Disco 2002 feels as exhilaratingly fresh and it does reliably familiar.--Mike Prevatt

Max Tundra

Mastered by Guy at the Exchange

Why do kids love video games? I think it's because they're the first machines children get to do battle with. Before we were adults cursing Windows 2000, we were kids playing our thumbs raw to beat the Intellivision. A model for all those strange inhuman things that are such intimate parts of our lives, video games gave us our first giddy chance to play on the fence between being at the mercy of the machine and being its master, to try to win by being fast enough and smart enough to keep the Space Invaders from killing us.

Max Tundra gives us another chance. On Mastered by Guy at the Exchange, mastery is the key word, and the attempt at it is great anxious fun. This is an electronic album full of staggering, stuttering, not-quite-human sounds--drum machines and strange time signatures, synthesizers, real sounds sampled and spliced, hiccupping cuts--and the trick is to try to keep up with it, to keep it all in your head.

But that's not the whole story. To help us assimilate all these brilliantly inventive sounds to a human scale, Jacobs lays over them the most lovely, daffy lyrical lines--great catchy pop melodies that manage not to interfere in the weird BattleBot soundscapes going on beneath. For example, the music under the gorgeous lyric to "Labial," a love song, goes from almost nothing, with Jacobs' sister Becky singing a capella, to a skitter-pop glitch-glam riff, to a single bubbling bass line, and finally to an over-the-top orchestral synth coda that sounds like it could be the end of an encore at a Billy Joel concert played on Pluto. Electronica for those with short attention spans.

And thank God. Just when electronica was about to turn into tasteful muzak for the hep set, Max Tundra doles out some serious mischief.--Dan Ionascu

Constant Moving Party

Roses

Claiming old-school Vegas punk status is virulent as ever, but CMP leadman Gigli Locatelli is the real thing; the longtime Las Vegan was playing backyard parties when you were still rugratting in your Garanimals. Over the years, he's fronted various bands from the excellent Red Exit to Herd of Lemmings, but now he's gone back to his roots by (sort of) reforming Constant Moving Party, a goodtime punk/pop band of the late '80s-early '90s Vegas scene. Roses is the perfect title for CMP's would-be comeback: likes its namesake, the album is nice, inoffensive and generally pleasing.

In this case, though, the thorns are more fun than the petals. Hook-rich alt-pop tunes such as opener "That Was Then"--with its sneering, barreling chorus--fare better than others such as "Katherine" or "Because," passably spirited rockers that, unfortunately, become bloated and overwrought. At its best, CMP's songcraft takes in equal parts Buzzcocks and Pixies and stamps out some memorable gems--check out the high-flying "Who's the Fool"--but Roses suggests this Party is only halfway started.--Andrew Kiraly