Frenchy’s Fracas

General Description
Artist/Band: The Chess Cadet All Stars AKA Marc Mac
Album Title: How About A Game Of Chess?
Year: 2005

My kind of weirdness!
How I Got Into This Music
One of those late discoveries through the lovely people at Last.fm. I was just browsing their excellent music selection and came across this album (can’t remember which track precisely). Finally got the album in september 2006 and was totally and completely mesmerised.
The Chess Cadet All Stars is a one-off project by mister Marc Mac, one half of 4hero.

Google Search: Reviews of How About A Game Of Chess? | This artist at Last.fm

Tracks that got my attention:
Intro
Heheh, setting the theme and style - a short sample from some Asian action movie (at least, it sounds like it)

Simple Folk
I remember some nitwit commenting on the repetition on this track; he still has use of his left arm on occassion and he can feel a rain storm coming just by the itching in his right hand..
Seriously, I love the repetition: adding little layers to the ground beat and piano sample is beautiful!

Space Cadet
Man, that beat.. It’s something from the Caribbean, not quite sure.

See Me Smile ft. Etta James
Hmm. my least favorite track; I don’t mind the vocals but they just don’t blend that well for me.

Blue Phil
Movie theme music, I can imagine Guy Richie using this for his umpteenth comeback movie

Tune For God
The weirdness expands into saxophone loops

Take The Queen
The Melancholy is all over this track. Thanks to that creep Moby, I started hating blues vocals being looped in a track. Take The Queen is the antidote.

A Bad Minute
50s/60s brass and strings mixed with some very heart-wrenching dialogue

Pick A Colour
I had to get used to the piano loops and high-pitch keyboards, but after a while I really loved this track. Listen to the beats in the background.

Sandman
Impossible to describe, but here goes. Another 90 second track with a great beat, lovely strings and general grooviness

No Bread No Peace
This track just gets to me everytime. When the music starts blending into the intro-monologue, I get all mellow. It’s the tear-filled guitar and horns, they’re beautiful!

Got U In Check
Lovely, lovely, lovely! Oh man!! It’s a lullaby with a cool beat. That’s it, beauty in simplicity!

Alone Me And The Sea
Damn! Still not sure who’s being sampled here, but my guess is Stephanie Mills. The mood on this track is total MellowDrama.

Dell’s Bells
A great track for a long drive.

Slide Bishop Slide
Subtle Arabian Nights flavored track with some crazy horn samples.

Latin Gold Theme
Instant dance classic! It’s a great remix/remake of I Am the Black Gold of the Sun track from the Nuyorican Soul album; a classic album by the boys of Masters At Work.

Conclusion
One of my all-time favorite albums ever! It’s got the precise balance of weirdness, beats, loops and orchestration that gets me jumping with joy everytime I listen to it. I still can’t get bored by it. I can’t explain it to other people, so just go and try to find the album and listen to it..

Share This

General Description

Artist/Band: Beck
Album Title: The Information
Year: 2006

It kinda grows on you..
 
How I Got Into This Music
Ah, read my review of his previous album, will ya? Just a bit more background info can be read here.

Google Search: Reviews of The Information | Review of this album at artistdirect.com | Album review at Answers.com | This artist at Last.fm

Tracks that got my attention:
Elevator Music
Strong links to his breakthrough single Loser, but I don’t mind. The keyboards for some mellowness and the guitars for acoustic and electric relaxation.

Think I’m in Love
Extreme melancholy but still kinda funny. Check out the music: it’s a big tip of the hat to movie mega-babe (now nutty far-right animal extremist) Brigitte Bardot’s Contact (have a YouTube experience, click here)

Cellphone’s Dead
It’s the weird combo of instruments that get to me: the 80’s retro-breaks combined with 70’s background vocals. The spooky synth bells-pattern reminded me of the Gorillaz’ DARE track, but maybe that’s just me..

Strange Apparition
With this track it’s easy: when he starts his vocals, I get a chill down my spine. And that piano gives us a great vibe, a kinda Neil Young thing, especially at the end.

Soldier Jane
Second friendly nod to Bardot’s Contact, but now with even more strong references. I like the lyrics on this one. The way the bass just drops by on this track is ultimate sweetness.

Nausea
Can’t quite put my finger on it - can’t remember what this song’s reminding of. Bass and strum guitars set a great pace, I love how he combines his samples with his instruments.

New Round
Lessons of the day
On a blackboard night
Seem to be erased
And the beacon has no light
Wow! There’s this sadness and warmth coming from this track, it tears your defenses down but also offers a nice warm blanket for protection.

Dark Star
Space age 70s drama, heavy on the string section. It took me some time to get used to it, but the harmonica sample helps a lot..

We Dance Alone
Not so impressive, still, a solid track.

No Complaints
Just love the synth-work on this song - that mellow spacey feeling!

1000BPM
Heavy fun-industrial-electro (new word? new genre?) music, another one that needed some time before I really started liking it.

Motorcade
Weird intro, love the sudden switch and the great low-low breakbeat. Listen to the beat during the chorus, frigging low! Another fantastic collage of sounds and beats (the whistle’s also very funny). And the stuff during the last 90 seconds - man-o-man! Retro feeling, taking you back to the breakdance, body-popping era.

Information
Chorus gets to me, every time.

Movie Theme
Yep, the title really fits the song. It’s taking you back to Vangelis and Jean Michel Jarre (and more recently:Air) . Another space odessey track and I love it.

Horrible Fanfare/Landslide/Exoskeleton
This track is so fucking (pardon my Frenchy!) weird. Listen to the gazillion different beats and samples happening on the background, foreground, in the middle, just everywhere! It’s collection of songs welded together to make this unbelievable construction. Steel guitar, easy rock guitar, weird breakbeats and samples, everything put together in a beautiful and weird way. With four minutes to go the track’s totally mellowed out and the last two minutes are just plain wacked out; not a lot of people will finish listening this one, but I enjoy it very much!

Conclusion
When I first started listening to this album somewhere in November 2006, I thought it was just like his Guero album: nice, but not really great. But I kept coming back to this album, something about it just clicked for me and if I’ve applied my limited writing talents correctly, the stuff I wrote before should give you an idea of just why it clicked).
The weird and haunting combined with the funny and mellow. The great collages of styles and sounds; my friend, you need to listen to this with headphones.
Believe it or not, this album’s one of my favorite albums of 2006.

Share This