Two Experiments in World Music

In certain ways, Adrian Sherwood‘s Never Trust a Hippy and Andre Afram Asmar‘s Racetothebottom are very much alike. These are both electronic dance records, which use dub techniques in order to incorporate a wide range of “world music” sounds within the general framework of a reggae-influenced beat. Sherwood and Asmar are both celebrated producers, who have produced many famous albums by others, but who have rarely or never recorded under their own names before. Yet in terms of my response, these albums couldn’t be more different. Racetothebottom, frankly, bores me. It never comes into focus, but rather seems to me to be an exercise in pointless, all-over-the-place eclecticism. Never Trust a Hippy, on the other hand, is a delight. It somehow combines the spacy feel of dub with a surprising sonic density. This CD really moves, maintaining a plateau of high intensity throughout. And the samples, from a wide variety of musical styles, always pack a punch and make musical sense to me–they are eclectic for sure, but they never seem merely eclectic. So go figure; as is usual when I write about music, I don’t quite have the words to explain why my experiences of the two CDs are so different. It’s a matter of affect: either the sounds intersect with my nervous system in exciting ways, or they don’t.

In certain ways, Adrian Sherwood‘s Never Trust a Hippy and Andre Afram Asmar‘s Racetothebottom are very much alike. These are both electronic dance records, which use dub techniques in order to incorporate a wide range of “world music” sounds within the general framework of a reggae-influenced beat. Sherwood and Asmar are both celebrated producers, who have produced many famous albums by others, but who have rarely or never recorded under their own names before. Yet in terms of my response, these albums couldn’t be more different. Racetothebottom, frankly, bores me. It never comes into focus, but rather seems to me to be an exercise in pointless, all-over-the-place eclecticism. Never Trust a Hippy, on the other hand, is a delight. It somehow combines the spacy feel of dub with a surprising sonic density. This CD really moves, maintaining a plateau of high intensity throughout. And the samples, from a wide variety of musical styles, always pack a punch and make musical sense to me–they are eclectic for sure, but they never seem merely eclectic. So go figure; as is usual when I write about music, I don’t quite have the words to explain why my experiences of the two CDs are so different. It’s a matter of affect: either the sounds intersect with my nervous system in exciting ways, or they don’t.