MUSIC ZONE
Ashanti — The
Declaration (Universal) Saurabh &
Gaurav
WHILE Ashanti may
not have massive marketing machines behind her like Mary J.
Blige, Mariah Carey or Beyonc`E8, she has managed to have
incredible permanence, despite limited commercial and critical
success. Ashanti’s prior works were largely guided by Irv
Gotti. This time around, Ashanti touts her new-found creative
control, replacing Irv Gotti with a host of industry
heavyweights, including Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins, Kenneth
‘Babyface’ Edmonds, Jermaine Dupri, Channel 7, and L.T.
Hutton, who worked on the album’s powerful lead single The
Way That I Love You.
You’re Gonna
Miss is a pleasurably
happy dance track, and Girlfriend is a terrific nod to
bygone Prince. The Way That I Love You comes off as a
compelling ode to being jilted, but it’s given a far more
surprising and dramatic twist in the video, which finds Ashanti
savagely murdering the boyfriend who did her wrong. Struggle,
however, is the album’s standout track and a realistic
portrayal of a relationship that has successfully weathered the
storms of love. Another treat is Things You Make Me Do, a
duet with Robin Thicke, where we find Ashanti falling prey to
the power of love. Her Declaration shows that not only does she
hold her own with any producer but she also molds them to her
vision of what current R&B should be.
Best track: Struggle
Worst track:
Body On Me
Rating
***
N.E.R.D. —
Seeing Sounds (Interscope)
Although N.E.R.D.
have lent their trademark, space-age soundscapes to everyone
from Jay-Z to Madonna to Snoop Dogg, with their musical stamp
irrevocably imprinted on nearly every genre of music for the
better part of this new millennium, Pharrell Williams and his
partner Chad Hugo, collectively known as The Neptunes, still
hunger for that same respect as legitimate artistes in their own
right. Spaz starts off with an unassuming rap bass line
before it progresses into a head-on collision of power guitars
and crashing cymbals, while the lead single, Everybody Nose
(All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom)
bounces all over the place with the skittery, tweaked out drums
of a Baltimore club sound, before suddenly dropping out into a
mellow interlude where Pharrell tries to catch his breath:
"Here’s a towel, wipe your face/Cool down, have a
drink it’s on me."While most of the album is
the standard Neptunes, experimental affair, N.E.R.D. suffers
through immature lyrical content and limited subject matter,
essentially detracting from the overall experience.
Whether it’s
reshaping old beats into an arsenal of fraudulent threats on the
Wham-esque You Know What, or Pharrell’s boring loverman
croons on Yeah You, the album isn’t exactly a showcase
of their metamorphosis into a legitimate act themselves. The
album is structured in a way that pushes most of the hyped-up
tracks toward the front with Pharrell in his skateboard rapping
style; the second half mostly consists of softer numbers with
his signature falsetto crooning. They undoubtedly still see
sounds others only dream of, but sometimes that vision is a bit
out of focus.
Best track:
Spaz
Worst track:
Kill Joy
Rating
**
The Orb — The
Dream (SD)
Founded in 1988 by
Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty, The Orb began as ambient and dub
DJs in London. Their early performances were inspired by ambient
and electronic artistes of the 1970s and 1980s, most notably
Brian Eno and Kraft werk. Nearly two decades after the 1991
debut The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld was
hailed as an ambient masterpiece, the duo aims to recapture
rave-era nostalgia with the eight-studio album The Dream. The
Orb has presented the album as a return to both form and
freedom. On the one hand, they cut loose from the deadening
expectations of record labels and made it themselves; on the
other, they’ve promised the fans a return to the cosmic
roamings of their hit collection UFOrb. The reggae-dub
influence continues, with much better results, on tracks like Mother
Nature and Lost & Found, which successfully blend
together dub and ambient sounds. The Forest of Lyonesse
and Orbisonia are perfect throwbacks to the electronica
of yesteryear, fitting perfectly next to the strongest songs
from any of the Orb’s early releases. High Noon mixes
delicate piano fragments with the kind of dub bubble bath that
helped the duo establish their name, while Codes lifts
sounds from the band’s own Blue Room and works as a
nostalgic ramble around some familiar soundscapes. The Dream, a
near-perfect collection of spaced-out beats, is clearly a return
to form, and a graceful one at that.
Best track:
Lost & Found
Worst track: Dirty
Disco Dub (DDD)
Rating
**
Album
of the month
My Brightest
Diamond — A Thousand Shark’s Teeth (AK)
My Brightest
Diamond’s 2006 debut, Bring Me The Workhorse,
packed an emotional wallop, delivering the audio
equivalent of an ecstatic flying dream on Dragonfly
and knocking attentive listeners with lamenting punch of The
Robin’s Jar. A Thousand Shark’s Teeth does more
than avoid the sophomore effect; it shines as a modern
masterpiece in dramatic orchestral pop. The album begins
with a fragile guitar line filling gently across a chilly
soundscape. Songstress Shara Worden’s siren call boldly
rises over zooming guitars and colossal cymbal crashes.
Along with her often-gorgeous singing, Worden presents an
ambitious series of arrangements involving strings, harps,
mallet percussion and electric guitars. Black &
Costaud, sung alternately in French and English,
relies on Sebastian Krueger’s multi-tracked clarinet for
its unsettling mood of ominous glee. Bass Player’s
smoky sensuality makes it clear standout, while The
Diamond and To Pluto’s Moon are immediately
accessible without compromising the album’s lofty themes
and sounds. The emotive rhythm arrangement and
electro-tribal percussive nature of The Ice & Storm,
the stripped down cinematic experience of If I Were
Your Queen, and the avant-garde classical nature of
the vibes in Apples all lead one into realising
that My Brightest Diamond is a step above most artists out
there right now. Their music will lift you with an
invisible force, gripping and freeing you simultaneously.
WHILE Ashanti may
not have massive marketing machines behind her like Mary J.
Blige, Mariah Carey or Beyonc`E8, she has managed to have
incredible permanence, despite limited commercial and critical
success. Ashanti’s prior works were largely guided by Irv
Gotti. This time around, Ashanti touts her new-found creative
control, replacing Irv Gotti with a host of industry
heavyweights, including Rodney ‘Darkchild’ Jerkins, Kenneth
‘Babyface’ Edmonds, Jermaine Dupri, Channel 7, and L.T.
Hutton, who worked on the album’s powerful lead single The
Way That I Love You.
Although N.E.R.D.
have lent their trademark, space-age soundscapes to everyone
from Jay-Z to Madonna to Snoop Dogg, with their musical stamp
irrevocably imprinted on nearly every genre of music for the
better part of this new millennium, Pharrell Williams and his
partner Chad Hugo, collectively known as The Neptunes, still
hunger for that same respect as legitimate artistes in their own
right. Spaz starts off with an unassuming rap bass line
before it progresses into a head-on collision of power guitars
and crashing cymbals, while the lead single, Everybody Nose
(All The Girls Standing In The Line For The Bathroom)
bounces all over the place with the skittery, tweaked out drums
of a Baltimore club sound, before suddenly dropping out into a
mellow interlude where Pharrell tries to catch his breath:
"Here’s a towel, wipe your face/Cool down, have a
drink it’s on me." While most of the album is
the standard Neptunes, experimental affair, N.E.R.D. suffers
through immature lyrical content and limited subject matter,
essentially detracting from the overall experience.
Founded in 1988 by
Alex Paterson and Jimmy Cauty, The Orb began as ambient and dub
DJs in London. Their early performances were inspired by ambient
and electronic artistes of the 1970s and 1980s, most notably
Brian Eno and Kraft werk. Nearly two decades after the 1991
debut The Orb’s Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld was
hailed as an ambient masterpiece, the duo aims to recapture
rave-era nostalgia with the eight-studio album The Dream. The
Orb has presented the album as a return to both form and
freedom. On the one hand, they cut loose from the deadening
expectations of record labels and made it themselves; on the
other, they’ve promised the fans a return to the cosmic
roamings of their hit collection UFOrb. The reggae-dub
influence continues, with much better results, on tracks like Mother
Nature and Lost & Found, which successfully blend
together dub and ambient sounds. The Forest of Lyonesse
and Orbisonia are perfect throwbacks to the electronica
of yesteryear, fitting perfectly next to the strongest songs
from any of the Orb’s early releases. High Noon mixes
delicate piano fragments with the kind of dub bubble bath that
helped the duo establish their name, while Codes lifts
sounds from the band’s own Blue Room and works as a
nostalgic ramble around some familiar soundscapes. The Dream, a
near-perfect collection of spaced-out beats, is clearly a return
to form, and a graceful one at that.
My Brightest
Diamond’s 2006 debut, Bring Me The Workhorse,
packed an emotional wallop, delivering the audio
equivalent of an ecstatic flying dream on Dragonfly
and knocking attentive listeners with lamenting punch of The
Robin’s Jar. A Thousand Shark’s Teeth does more
than avoid the sophomore effect; it shines as a modern
masterpiece in dramatic orchestral pop. The album begins
with a fragile guitar line filling gently across a chilly
soundscape. Songstress Shara Worden’s siren call boldly
rises over zooming guitars and colossal cymbal crashes.
Along with her often-gorgeous singing, Worden presents an
ambitious series of arrangements involving strings, harps,
mallet percussion and electric guitars. Black &
Costaud, sung alternately in French and English,
relies on Sebastian Krueger’s multi-tracked clarinet for
its unsettling mood of ominous glee. Bass Player’s
smoky sensuality makes it clear standout, while The
Diamond and To Pluto’s Moon are immediately
accessible without compromising the album’s lofty themes
and sounds. The emotive rhythm arrangement and
electro-tribal percussive nature of The Ice & Storm,
the stripped down cinematic experience of If I Were
Your Queen, and the avant-garde classical nature of
the vibes in Apples all lead one into realising
that My Brightest Diamond is a step above most artists out
there right now. Their music will lift you with an
invisible force, gripping and freeing you simultaneously.