Kid 606 in a nutshell
TarTar | San Antonio, TX | 02/01/2004
(4 out of 5 stars)
"You know when you're listening to a song, and there just seems to be something missing. It's a good song with a catchy premise, but it's too plain. Your hyperactive nature takes over and you start making faster and harder beats with your mouth, causing a shower of spittle to rain upon anything or anyone in front of you. Well, Kid606 provides the fast and hard beats. He even provides the spittle. He'll even provide the propane tank and lighter. He'll even provide the noose and would love nothing more than to kick the chair out from under you. It's hard to find samples of his music online, so I'm here to hopefully provide you with a general idea about this album.Kid606 has a hyper-core, hard-active, beats-per-second nature. The first track (the illness) is a work of perfection with its authentic drum/bass, the speed of Kid606's beats are through the roof, approved by the road runner himself. This album has a number of reggae vocals, most of them concentrated in track 2 (who wah kill sound?) as disoriented faded dream-like sounds. Rasta angels, if you will. Track 6 (buckle up) has a straight forward reggae vocalist who raps along muffled bass and clicks of fury. Kid606's music is dense with video game beeps, whistles, and various other midi announcements. Track 4 (ecstasy mother***) spans for 8 and 1/2 minutes long portraying a battle of video game hardware, where the consoles are tanks, the controllers are fighter jets, and the cartridges are nukes. Track 5 (total recovery is possible) is the perfect example of a video game tribute song, or an Autechre tribute song, either way it's lots of fun to listen to. Track 7 (if I had a happy place this would be it) is the closest Kid606 gets to happy music, a theme song to robots dancing in a field of flowers. Track 9 (powerbookfiend) has Doormouse trademarked fuzz-pounding in an industrial setting where the factory stops to take a breath during its nonstop slaughter of human ears. Track 11 (woofer wrecker) brings back the first track's ordered themes and offers a Lords of Acid chorus. Track 12 (parenthood) is the last track, ending this relatively short album. It's the final cool down to the overheated beats throughout the album and reminds me of a Deep Forest track for some odd reason (don't worry, there aren't any singing pygmies, just a very calming sound).Verdict: Awesome beats, crazy layering, and an all around good time. My only complaint is the album is rather short. Tracks 3, 8, & 10 barely fill a minute each, so in reality, there are only 9 full songs. Perhaps Kid606 didn't want to cram too much in one album for fear of receiving complaints of heart attacks. In any case, this album is a powerhouse that will help you build a tree house in 7 seconds for furry creatures after which cause you to burn it down after they've taken residence. Prepare to wet yourself. Enjoy.-TarTar"
The best hardcore gabber ragga drum n bass idm glitch cd eve
A. Andrasko | Sonora, CA United States | 08/02/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"r!
Well, maybe it defies categorization, but I really liked it, anyway. Similar in feel to "action packed mentallist...," (which IS a mashup album- if you look on the back of the cd case it says "all tracks not written by kid 606. [see also: the violent turd record label for more mashup goodness]), but more obviously his original work. This release makes extensive use of ragga vocals and gabber breaks. There's still a slew of noise, bleeps, and crashing walls of fuzz, but all of it is certainly hurtling in a much faster, more focused kind of way. I find myself playing it excessively, as I did "...mentallist...", but I don't think 'god, that still sounds like an irritating pop song' about three times a minute.
It seems a little more accessible still than "down with the scene," as the beats are less jungly/ more gabberish. Technically, you could play this at a rave...(what destruction that would be! Oh well, it's fast + catchy enough- the kids should love it)Regardless, the album definitely keeps true to the general attitude of gleeful trickster deviance and relentless disregard that charactarizes most (and maybe the best?) of his work.
I'd imagine the closest musical equivalent would be "who still kill sound" which just came out, so I don't really know what I'm talking about. For total mellow ambiance from the same musical genius try "the soccergirl" ep. For glitchy abstract mellowness (not necessarily a 'go to sleep' album) try "ps i love you" and it's housier not-so-glitchy twin "ps you love me" ('housier' being a relevant term- beats are slick + super chill). For pounding appleIIe gabber try "don't sweat the technics" which may become hard to find, as it is on Vinyl Communications and consequently out of print. "Down with the scene" is the glitchiest and most punk-rock in yr face.
I recommend you avidly consume and buy everything he puts out, unless, of course, you can't stand all that racket.
PS- the illness, com.A rmx on the japanese release is pretty decent, but sounds much like the original. I enjoy it more than the idea of wondering what it might sound like, but I'm just a total sucker for those nasty 'one extra track' imports. Record companies somewhere are smiling malevlently."
Track Listings (13) - Disc #1