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Review: Jack Foley
FOR many people, Brooklyn six-piece, Automato, have delivered
the first genuinely essential hip-hop album of the year.
Delivering the same sort of retro-sliced, feel-good rap which
made the likes of DM
& Jemini and Outkast
so cool, the NY outfit provide compelling evidence as to why their
arrival has been so keenly anticipated.
Fusing the Big Apple's current lust for post-punk, with early
electro and old-school hip-hop elements, not to mention the funk/soul
style of the 70s, the rhetoric is left to Jesse Levin and Ben
Fries, while the remaining members contribute layer after layer
of exciting loops, enticing beats and samples featuring guitars,
drums and keyboards.
The result is a hopelessly hypnotic hip-hop gem, which almost
effortlessly puts the mainstream likes of Usher and N*E*R*D
in the shade.
Produced by James Murphy and Tim Goldsworthy (who have also worked
with The Rapture and Black Dice), Automato (the album)
is as attitude laden as you might expect from such an urban outfit,
but it shows a nice line in humour too.
The tracks take in the outfit's life in New York, as well as
the usual observations on love, life and growing up - but all
do it with a vibrancy that is lacking in so many of the more attitude-laden,
hardcore hip-hop albums.
Like DM & Jemini, this harks back to a time when hip-hop
was fun, and, as a result, it's difficult not to like.
Stand-out tracks include the current single, Walk Into The
Light, with its catchy chorus and rich instrumentation, which
sort of sets the formula for what to expect from the album.
By keeping things so busy, and bringing in some well-chosen guitar
riffs, bass lines, and piano loops, the track is constantly evolving,
so that it never falls into a rut.
The piano, in particular, is an essential component of the album's
success, being used to similarly explosive effect, on tracks such
as How To Read A Person Like A Book and Capes Billowing,
as the NY Dj, Blockhead, does on his debut album.
But there are also nods to the funky, Seventies-style guitar
and bass of Lalo Schiffrin numbers, as well as the smooth vocal
style of those Outkast boys, on the slower, sleeker Hollywood
and Vine.
In short, this is a hip-hop masterclass to sit right up there
alongside the best that the movement has to offer. Make sure you
get acquainted with it.
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Track listing:
1. Focus
2. The Single
3. My Casio
4. Walk Into The Light
5. Gold Of Desert Kings
6. Cool Boots
7. Hollywood And Vine
8. Capes Billowing
9. The Let Go
10. How To Read A Person Like A Book
11. Hope
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