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| Señor Coconut and his Orchestra SMOKE ON THE WATER |
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Smoke on the Water Live Sonarsound Tokyo October
2006
Señor Coconut and his Orchestra (feat. Argenis
Brito)
Yellow Fever!
Essay Recordings AY CD 11
Release date: June 9 2006
Atomâ„¢ on his latest album
As early as the eighties, the Yellow Magic
Orchestra was merging the eclectic Exotica
attitude of Martin Denny with an ultimate update
of Japanese music. "Martin Denny and his line-up
created an imaginary musical landscape of luscious
tropical delights: damp, foreboding jungles,
vibrantly plumed birds in full flight, grimly
silent Tiki gods in clearings overgrown by
creepers, sleepy fishing villages on bamboo
stilts, volcanoes erupting with molten orange
lava, alluringly smiling little brown nymphs in
grass skirts -- the land of lotus blossoms -- in a
word: Exotica. If rock'n'roll is the musical
equivalent of a good hard fuck, Exotica brings us
the multi-orgasmic joys of tantric sex in
endlessly flowing combinations of mystic union.
Or, in the words of Lex Baxter: 'Ports of
Pleasure'" (Stuart Sweezy). Today I am trying to
go one step further by transferring the Yellow
Magic Orchestra 'back to the future': a digital,
fully artificial simulation and cut and paste
style recreation of Latin Exotica sound. We may
call it 'hypereclectic'. I have left both the
historical timeline and ethnical space and move
back and forth between musical periods and styles
of Latin music. YMO covered Martin Denny's
originally Exotica style "Firecracker" in a
futuristic yet folkloric manner. Now I am covering
the cover and transforming it back into a
simulation of a Martin Denny sound.
In "Yellow Fever!" I combine the production
techniques of the last three Coconut albums "El
Gran Baile" (1997), "El Baile Aleman" (2000) and
"Fiesta Songs" (2003): "El Gran Baile", was not
based on song structures. It was abstract cut and
paste. It became the prototype of the
Electrolatino genre. Latino samples fused with the
track logic of European electronic music. "El
Baile Aleman" put the focus on Kraftwerk covers
that were meant to sound as though they had been
played by a Latino line-up. But this simulation
was created by sampler, without 'real' musicians.
The fusion of Latino and Electro that was set in
motion in "El Gran Baile" is given a new slant --
partly because of the production method, but also
by processing prototypical songs (Kraftwerk).
"Fiesta Songs" abandons the obvious reference to
my electronic roots to concentrate on simulating
an acoustic retro-Latin sound, covering
Anglo-American pop hits. In places, the simulation
is revealed by digital artefacts. Again, I wanted
to try taking a new direction in my production
approach: instead of total programming, I recorded
musicians for the first time, merging the material
and original Latino samples to create something
completely new.
"Yellow Fever!" combines these three working
methods and approaches: abstract cut and paste
emerges in the interludes between the tracks, and
a digital/electronic sound in the "El Gran Baile"
style reappears. It contrasts with the acoustic
passages, reveals the simulation and is a musical
style in its own right. As in "El Baile Aleman"
programming and covering feature strongly here,
merging with yet another milestone in the history
of electronic music. The Yellow Magic Orchestra
tracks undergo the same kind of distortion that
was applied to the Kraftwerk songs: bringing
Electronica back to the future! The third step
involves working with session musicians, as to
some extent on "Fiesta Songs". The acoustic aspect
of the music is perfected by the detailed
structuring of complex arrangements, but at the
same time it is contrasted more strongly by the
inclusion of digital elements. The album as a
whole is an extremely complex patchwork of
thousands of parts. Within a single song the
musical course of things changes dozens of times.
You could see "Yellow Fever!" as my first
experiment on the way towards hypereclectic music.
I experiment with breaking down all musical
boundaries -- but this time "only" within the
Latino genre. Another important point is the
cinematic principle: every moment of "Yellow
Fever!" is meant to provoke images. In this
respect, there is a very close correlation with
the concept of Exotica. I'm not just interested in
recreating styles. Above all, I want to trigger
emotions, images, déjà -vus, and so on.
Tags : guilty76am Senor Cococnut Smoke on the Water Deep Purple Uwe Schmidt Atom Heart |
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Affichage : 45065
Durée : 296 s |
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