CD Review: Cut Chemist - The Audience's Listening - Page 2

In simplest terms, it's a virtuoso record: a place for Macfadden to demonstrate his considerable skills sans group expectations, sans track breaks, and, on two of the 12 songs, sans MCs. And while that undoubtedly sounds like great news to those of us who have been anticipating an official full-length from the Chemist, its ramifications stir up another moral quandary entirely: why, for any reason other than nostalgia or the anti-digital Luddism already explored, should we listen to a turntable virtuoso with glee, while rock virtuosos like Yngwie Malmsteen remain the stuff of derisive snorts and wisecracks?

Give it some thought - it's a legitimate question. Take, for example, the Avalanches-style PoMo pranksterism of opening track "Motivational Speaker," which hardly boasts a soul beneath its kitschy samples and lightning-fast cuts; I'll be the first to admit it's a lot funnier than the average Malmsteen solo, but isn't part of the usual guitar-wankery critique that it lacks meat, a real reason for existing? Nor is "Motivational Speaker" — the only song here that seems to exist only as a showcase for Cut Chemist's magic fingers. "(My 1st) Big Break," into which "Speaker" segues, is scratchtastic, but there's little substance in the structure. Meanwhile, the trippy but sometimes numbing "Metorail Through Space" resembles little more than an exotica version of the Final Fantasy theme with a backbeat.

Predictably, it's the two rap cuts here which grant the most leverage to Chemist's musical dexterity: the Edan and Mr. Lif-fronted "Storm," in particular, goes down like a hearty second helping of Grandmaster Flash's classic electro opus "Scorpio," and makes you hope for J5's sake that they're bringing their "A" game to that new record.

It's unfair, however, to deride this album on grounds of it being a self-indulgent DJ showcase (the words of the Devil's Advocate, not me). Dance music is supposed to be fun, after all, with nowhere near the amount of premium placed on craft as in rock music. And though it's been established that Cut Chemist is far from a craftsman, the crucial element I've left out in critiquing songs like "Speaker" and "Big Break" is that they're a hell of a lot of fun to listen to. There's a lot more where they came from, too; "Spoon" cruises on the funky, melodic economy of a prime Public Enemy instrumental, while "A Peak in Time" actually ascends to some truly organic heights, a shining instance of electronica as perhaps modern music's most relevant form of composition.

Article Author: Modern Pea Pod

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