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Cucumber Farmer: Empirical Research on Western Popular Music 1993-2006
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American Brothers (ABROS6)
 Cucumber Farmer is a Finnish indie/experimental/psychedelic rock band and this is their second album. The package includes two CD’s and the first one has nine new Cucumber Farmer tracks and the second one remixes of each of them by Pink Twins. A very good idea!
”The Absolute Proof” begins slowly in a hazy way and the really effect-heavy vocals join in before a minute and a half. This is a dark, Gothic but psychedelic track. ”Since I’ve Been Edge & Bono” is slow dub reggae with delay vocals. This is rather druggy and hallucinatory stuff including interesting guitar elements. There is some distorted guitar noise somewhere in there, and then the track goes reggae again. A psychedelic track. “I Just Died in a Las Vegas Nightclub” starts off peacefully with a smokey piano and bass plus some little rhythm. Later on the track grows and some distorted guitar joins in. The end is just piano. Beginning slowly and in a minimal way “Working in the USSR” includes bass drum, experimental soundscapes and a nice melody. At around the three-and-a-half-minute marker the track gets going harder along with a loud distorted guitar. The bit weird, faster and rather dark “Loneliness of Gary Lonely” is closer to indie rock. The bit garage spirited “Touch My E-Gow” is an energetic and well rolling, pretty heavy number that has some vocals again. The strange, heavy and monotonic ”It’s Killing Time When You’re Young” is somewhere in between Chrome and the industrial metal of Godflesh. The instrumental and hypnotic “Bigass Oceanliner” is up-beat, but rather heavy and occasionally also quite psychedelic funk. It also includes programmed percussion, for example. “DTM and a Riding Car” includes sports commentator samples from a car race while the music is guitar-driven post rock. This long track gets heavier and faster along the way and there is also an experimental and psychedelic part in the middle… Then comes some sort of funky stuff and in the end there are some more commentator samples and a heavier guitar riff. This is a highly affective, varied and rather dark album.
The Pink Twins versions follow mainly somewhat the original performances but they are weirder and more psychedelic. They have played around with computers freely from time and time, and some of the tracks are now more ambient in nature. The tracks have also been renamed a bit differently, and for example the first track is now just “Absolute”. “Close to the Edge” is now more dub than the original. ”I Just Died in a Paris Airport Lounge” gets really strange and insane, my head explodes… “One Gary Lonely” is an instrumental version with added psych levels. They have maintained the peaceful basic structure but they have added plenty of weird electronics on top of it. “Steal My E-Gow” is slowed down into dub pace and the vocals have been pitched up a bit. Somehow I got a bit punky feel from this… You can hear the solos and the drums have strange, desolate sound. It’s and okay version, though. “Killing Time” sounds rather electric and experimental. The very different, really avant-garde and weird “Big Ass” has later on a totally mad electro beat, and the rest is vague tinkling and disturbance noises. In my opinion, without the riding car samples “Hard Riding Man” works better than the original piece and the track’s hypnotic kraut rock touch comes into its own much better. At around the three-minute-marker the track does get really freaky and weird, welcome to the loony bin. The unbelievable, long and fast fluctuating sound collage puts the listener’s brain in disorder for sure. The brothers have done a great job and I guess the mastering job done by Teemu Korpipää is also to blame.
In summary, Empirical Research on Western Popular Music 1993-2006 is a rather dark, at times even desperate comment on the state of Western civilization, but musically and emotionally it works very well for me. The album is psychedelic and experimental enough, and especially the mixes by Pink Twins are very open-minded.
www.americanbrothers.com/cf |
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