Recording Review - Dengue Fever, The Deepest Lake (2015)

Retro mod, moody, and hypnotic -- take a sonic dip in exotic waters
^4.75/5.0 

Cosmically speaking, three and half years is the tiniest of intervals. Halley’s Comet takes around 75 years to swing by, so a three to four year pause between Dengue Fever releases should be bearable. But given the hothouse worlds that bands live in, the anticipation can be challenging. Last time around, 2011’s Cannibal Courtship (review) reassured fans that the group hadn't turned away from their Khmer rock foundation, even if they had added bits of funk, ska, and soul. Now Dengue Fever is back with The Deepest Lake, and they continue to refine their playing, this time emphasizing the spy music and cocktail aspects of their sound.

Of course, any time you run into old friends again, you compare them against your memory for changes, and the band takes advantage of that to prank their fans a bit. The opening track, “Tokay”, kicks off with a drum machine and synths laying down a Latin dance vamp. The ten measures intro is long enough that I started to wonder if the band had reinvented themselves. But when Chhom Nimol started singing, the keyboards tag-teamed out to let Zak Holtzman’s tremolo heavy guitar come in, connecting with the group's canonical style. Senon Williams still revels in his Latin-flavored bassline and the percussion includes cuíca accents, but that all fits perfectly with the familiar sounds of Nimol’s haunting voice, echo laden guitars, and Ethan Holtzman’s moody organ solo.

After “Tokay” teases, “No Sudden Moves” offers a strong taste of what The Deepest Lake is all about. The mod, mid ‘60s cocktail vibe is Dengue Fever a go go. Tight horns harmonize the twisting guitar riff and a bass sax blatts out the punches. The chorus softens the edges with sweet pulsing guitar winding around the vocals. The bridge interlude veers forward in time, kicking off with an angular new wave guitar pattern, setting up a slinky bassline to accompany Nimol’s staccato Khmer rap. Then the band drifts into a spy soundtrack interlude to recapture the mod flow of the song and take it home.

That hip retro feel continues through The Deepest Lake, meshing well with the reflective tone of reverb-soaked guitar and hypnotic bass. Nimol’s voice is born for this milieu, sexy and seductive, somehow creating understanding, even if most of the lyrics are in Cambodian. While these songs share DNA with earlier tunes, the group seems to be branching out a bit to explore other cultures. “Ghost Voice” features a distinctly Nigerian guitar, even though the other instruments are anchored in Asian tonality and “Still Waters Run Deep” has an infectious upbeat rhythm that blends Bollywood with “Spy Who Loved Me” chic.

Not all of these tunes are completely new; two were featured on the Girl From the North EP that came out just over a year ago (review). “Taxi Dancer” and “The Deepest Lake on the Planet” are just as good here, but The Deepest Lake is full of great tracks. Probably the best one is “Rom Say Sok”, which features Zac and Nimol’s vocal chemistry and draws on the psychedelic soul the band toyed with on Cannibal Courtship. I can’t help but picture “it” girls doing the frug as the tune spins out. Although this is one of the few songs here with mostly English lyrics, they're trippy and oblique, “French boyfriend will never be wed / Alligator's dried up and now it's dead.” The lines may not form a coherent narrative, but the heady music plays along, with tweedly organ and cool little feedback echoes in the margins. A little over halfway through the tune, the horns come in and pump up the soul to lay down the groundwork for David Ralicke’s raging sax solo.

The Deepest Lake proves that Dengue Fever still have their fingers on the exotic, cross-cultural pulse that has inspired them since the beginning. There are precious few truly original bands out there, and I’m glad to hear that one of my favorites is keeping the faith. We may need to wait another three years for the next album, but this one will tide us over till the comet swings by again.

Concert review - Govinda with David Starfire, Cualli, and Goldilocks

Wednesday, 2 October 2013 (Aggie Theatre, Ft. Collins CO)

More than just a mid-week rave, Govinda and his tour arranged for a happening that encompassed art and dance in addition to the music. Painters generated psychedelic primitive imagery at the back of the venue during the show and dancers took the stage at will to channel and interpret the music in physical form.


This extra bit of theater was a good strategy to address the fundamental problem of turning laptop-oriented music production into a performance. Each of the players had their own angle for confronting this conundrum.

Goldilocks

Goldilocks took the tweaker DJ approach. Intently focused on his wide array of equipment, he stayed in constant motion. Adjusting a slider here, adding a light keyboard riff there, he made mixing a track look like a juggling act. Despite the furious action, my sense is that most of the effort took place earlier in the studio and his hive of activity was an equal balance of simple mixing and adding accents. That said, I appreciated that his pieces evoked a lot of different moods, from trippy dance beats to dark voyages filled with throbbing bass and bubbling tension. It was a decent warm-up set, but it offered little of his personality.

Cualli

Cualli had a completely different style. The bulk of his set was based on tracks he created in advance. The pieces favored a lot of international influences, especially Asian tonalities. Despite the cool, hypnotic sound, he had almost no stage presence as he dreamily danced along to his shrink-wrapped tunes. A couple of songs into the set, I was about to write him off when he transformed his performance. He pulled out his guitar and played over the pre-fab tracks. In contrast to his spacey dancing, his fretwork was remarkably focused. Chord stabs added depth to the synth washes and trance grooves and his lead work ranged from singing melodies to spacious post rock jams and energetic shredding.

It was a startling contrast. Without the guitar, he faded into the background, which didn't do justice to the music he had built up. But adding in the live production element electrified his set.

David Starfire

David Starfire, on the other hand, was all about performance. His technique split the difference between the opening acts, actively mixing his well-designed tracks and adding live percussion work. But, more importantly, he engaged the crowd like a master club DJ.


Dancing and gyrating, his high energy spurred the audience on. Changing up the mix with a small handheld controller, his gestures were large and exciting. His electronic percussion playing was solid, but he made his mark with vibrant physicality as he pounded on the acoustic toms to the side of his deck. He didn't just strike the drum heads, he launched his whole body into the beat. Grinding bass and sharp-edged tones set a rave vibe for a solid start to the set, but then Starfire pulled out a hidden ace. He kicked off the beat and when the opening vocals of "A Day in the Life" came in, the audience rolled back in momentary surprise before enthusiastically responding. This heavily mutated version of The Beatles' tune juxtaposed chopped and scratched samples of the original vocal against a heavy drumstep beat. He followed up with a similar treatment of The Beastie Boys' "Sabotage".


These tracks and others demonstrated Starfire's up front production work. Whether reworking classics or crafting compelling jams out of world-beat samples, he drew on a number of electronic genres and interesting sounds. Paired with his presence and instinctive connection to the audience, it made for a strong show.

Govinda

Govinda followed a similar path, with active track mixing, live overdubs, and strong energy. Where Starfire traded on a manic fervor as he worked the audience, Govinda radiated musical joy, occasionally leavened by intense concentration as he locked into his mixing or his violin riffs. It was a mellower mood than the previous set, but never dragged because his amicable personality buoyed the crowd.


I've loved Govinda's recorded work (Universal On Switch and Resonance), pulled in by his swirling mix of throbbing electronic jams, gypsy-style violin, and exotic inspirations. His set delivered on all of these elements. Indian percussion counts pressed against swooping synthesizers and intergalactic zipper basslines. He'd set up the song components, build a glitchy rhythm, then theatrically thread his echoed and compressed violin through the evocative soundscape. The beats and grinds were visceral enough to maintain a healthy dance spirit but the hypnotic ecstasy of the trance was a strong second locus for his work.


One of my favorite songs in the set was "Plant The Seed", from last year's Resonance. Rosey's lush vocal from the recording cut in and out and Govinda seemed to fall under its spell as he delicately played the melodic theme and rocked to the twisting rhythm and pulsating bottom end. Of course, as the tune wound down, his infectious grin returned and he leaned forward to kick off the next track, sending the audience spiraling into a new direction as he bobbed along with us.


Bright wandering lights, lithe dancers trailing beribboned fans, paintings filled with symbolism, and a long night of evolving musical visions. Bodies and minds were permeated with vibration and euphoria as analog and digital fused.

More photos on my Flickr

Recording review - Akron, Voyage of Exploration (2012)

Akron's exotica suggests an alien art walk


Voyage of Exploration presents a fine collection of retro lounge/space music that imagines a much cooler future than our paltry dimension can offer. Like The Traditionalists, a branch of Secret Chiefs 3, Akron shares a love of classic exotica like Les Baxter, Martin Denny and Esquivel!. On the one hand, his sound is utterly 1964 retro, but it also has a timeless quality. These songs mix and match elements from Denny’s exotica, Joe Meek’s production on songs like Telstar, Ennio Morricone’s film scores and early Pink Floyd psychedelia to reveal the inherent stylistic connections they share.

The album opens with a spacy sound that overlays throbbing organic machinery with bits of grinding, tinkling glass. This motif returns repeatedly throughout Voyage of Exploration, like it’s the background sound of some bizarre museum where each song is a holographic display to be entered and explored.

The first installation in this alien art walk is the focused instrumental progression of "Picabu". This retro-hip lounge groove has a tightly syncopated foundation with a simple, repeating guitar line. Washes of synth flutter through like electro-magnetic curtains blowing in the wind. After an accent break of rhythmic breathing, echoplex artifacts hint at Denny’s wildlife sounds in the background. Then the song fades back into the motif as we move towards the next display.

Stepping ahead to "Tricorder", the song begins with a tribal percussion beat. The music initially sounds like an Italian soundtrack, perhaps a Spaghetti Western. But the electronic melody in the left channel wobbles and bubbles like an overheated liquid energy, giving the song a science fiction vibe. It eventually melts down into a strange, open cavern, where odd snippets of sound conjure the sense of small creatures lurking in the shadows. These sonic pictures are perhaps very personal, but Akron’s songs are very evocative that way. Each tonal component seems to represent some element of a greater story.

Another great example of this programmatic style of music comes later on "Memory Hole". The track features a pastiche of various fragments from Pink Floyd’s Piper at the Gates of Dawn crossed with experimental Krautrock. The steady bass line at the start suggests a purpose or organizing principle. Burbling electronic tones zip by and create a sense of space along with a steady percussive tap. A steady staccato guitar strum provides a subconscious murmur as a keyboard line seems to be searching for something. Suddenly, a jarring electronic interference breaks the concentration. The bass and percussion reassert themselves, but now, they’ve internalized the distortion into the original principle.

Moments later, the distortion is traded out for yet another sound. Each new context for the bass line feels like an experimental repositioning of base idea. All along, the Krautrock repetition creates a hypnotic focus. Eventually, the bass line theme is abandoned as an ambient, swaying section takes over. Organic creaking suggests sails and ropes as a new meandering keyboard line wanders like a distraction from the earlier focus. But the original theme reasserts itself to finish the song.

Finally, as the stately, nostalgic "Funeral For Euclid" drifts out of focus, we find ourselves at the end of our tour. Linger in the museum atrium a moment and savor the sensations before returning to the mundane world. The exhibits in Voyage of Exploration will wait here for your next visit.

(This review first appeared on Spectrum Culture.)