CD review - The Kleptones, 24 Hours (2006)

I've been meaning to review the Kleptones for quite a while. DJ "Eric Kleptone" creates mashups of pop, rock, and rap songs, with generous amounts of movie and TV sound thrown in. While there are tons of talented, witty mashup artists, the Kleptones stand out as unique, especially for their album focus.

My introduction to them was through Yoshimi Battles the Hip-Hop Robots, which was a song by song mashup of the Flaming Lips' Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots mixed with artists like 50 Cent, Blackalicious, and the Beastie Boys. A Night at the Hip-Hopera did a similar thing with music by Queen. This review will focus on their most recent disc, 24 Hours, which is a concept album where the songs represent the course of a day. Running through the hours, the collection tells a whole story, ending as it began in a dream state.

This is a double album (day and night) with 33 tracks, which is a bit more than the Moody Blues used for Days of Future Past. So, there are so many hot tracks that it's difficult to narrow down the list. The source songs cover a good 40 odd years of music, including artists from John Lennon to White Stripes. There an undercurrent of subtle self-deprecation and irony, with references to theft ("...even if it's for a worthy cause") and lame DJs ("...anybody could whip (this) up in 10 minutes with GarageBand). Sound bites from the movie Waking Life provide another common thread.

Here are a few highlights: 0810 - Down on Bennies is beautifully assembled with the vocals from Elton John's Bennie and the Jets paired with Rage Against the Machine's Down on the Street. The chords are nothing like Bennie, but they work with the vocals perfectly. I'll never listen to Elton John the same. 1100 - Casbah Ain't Easy layers David Bowie's It Ain't Easy onto Rock the Casbah by the Clash. The peak of disc one is 1600 - War of Confusion, with pieces of Stevie Wonder's Superstition, a couple of Peter Gabriel songs, and Edwin Starr's War. Except for the sound bites strewn through it, this sounds like it's of one piece. It's heavily political with bits of George W Bush's State of the Union address.

Disc 2 moves into the evening with a stop at the bar. Stevie Wonder's Uptight (Everything's Alright) rocks over Jet's Get What You Need to create 2100 - Uptight Jet. Things turn darker later on when 0205 - Drunk Machine crashes to an end leading to 2245 - If Not For the Ambulance Driver. The latter is a sweet balance of George Harrison and the Flaming Lips. Near the end, 0610 - We All Fall Through the Air provides a nice dreamy groove, bringing back Elton John, this time with Air.

Even if you're on the fence about the whole mashup thing, give the Kleptones a listen. Because of intellectual property issues, Kleptones CDs are not available in stores but you can download them for free from their site. If you like what you hear, you can contribute to them as you see fit.

What to drink? Black and Tan, of course.

Essay: Mix and mash

I talked briefly about DJs and mixing in my Pretty lights review. I want to talk a bit more about mashups in particular, in preparation for my review of the Kleptones' 24 Hours. A mashup is a mix of two or more songs in the same track, where the intent is to create a musical hybrid. Since this usually entails heavier usage of the source material than a simple sample, each of the original songs is still largely recognizable. Oftentimes, this is structured by mostly using music from one song and vocal tracks from another: think Stairway to Gilligan's Island, except maintaining the original Gilligan tune for the vocals. Genre hopping between the songs is also common.

Much like my preference in cover tunes, I really like creative mashups. There's something really satisfying about a clever combination. At its best, a good mashup balances between a novel experience with something familiar. The familiar song(s) raise associations that can provide a sense of deeper meaning and increase my appreciation of the originals while I enjoy them in their new context. In contrast, songs like P Diddy's I'll Be Missing You, with its straightforward lift of the Police's Every Breath You Take, seem non-creative and dull.

Of course, that raises the question of whether a mashup is truly a creative work. If the DJs didn't play any of the music they're putting together, are they just stealing art from real musicians? This may seem like a new, particularly egregious case of appropriation, but it's really a standard practice throughout the history of creative arts. Great painters and sculptors have stolen techniques and visual elements from one another. Classical music has used folk melody themes and jazz has a long history of reinterpreting classic tunes. Musique concrète, a musical/artistic approach based on found sound, is even more closely related to today's mashup. If information or meaning is added by the musical juxtaposition, then this is a creative work. Keep in mind, too, that, though there are mashup tools (e.g. ACID Pro), creating a mashup is a challenging technical task. The DJ has to unite rhythm, musical key, and create a balance between the sources. Even if the keys match between two songs, the chord changes of one song may not meshwell with the melody of the second.

The ethical question is more interesting (and harder) to answer. There has been plenty of debate over the use of short samples in hip hop music. In the case of mashups, much more of the source material is used. This seems to be analogous to cover songs. In that case, live performances are addressed through BMI/ASCAP fees paid by the venue and CD sales pay publishing royalties. Live performances aren't really an issue, as most mashup DJs don't focus on live shows. Most mashup artists do offer recordings, though, and they don't tend to pay royalties, which is an issue. That's why many of mashup artists give away their tracks and rely on donations and other sources. The holders of the publishing rights do their best to shut down the mashup DJs with varying suucess (look at DJ DangerMouse's Grey Album). The few mashups that develop a cult following usually find a legal path to capitalize on the fan base.

Coming up next is my review of the Kleptones, who are one of my favorite mashup artists.

CD review - The Books, The Lemon of Pink (2003)

Found sound samples and music slip together to create a kind of flow out of disparate parts. The Books create an experimental, experiential sonic scape, where the listener's mindset contributes a large share. The album overwhelms with elements of aleatoric randomness (which they deny) and slight nods to Robert Fripp's Exposure and Eno & Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts. Many of the songs follow a loose pattern, starting with a rhythmic collection of sound samples, then intricately layering in cello, guitar or piano. Sometimes the tracks coalesce into something resembling a more normal song, at least for a little while. The result is a bit of watchwork complexity, with odd organic elements. It never becomes tedious or repetitious, though, because the sound changes from song to song and the samples shift as well.

The title track, The Lemon of Pink, lays the foundation for the album. Poetic phrases and vocalizations with a repetitive piano/guitar undertone fall into a slightly stiff, awkward rhythm. Snippets of music and spoken word/found sound flow together, but the meaning is unclear. It's like a dream after you've awakened: how can you organize and explain the pieces you remember? It's impossible.

If there is a theme for The Lemon of Pink, perhaps it's a kind of zen-like philosophy. Songs like Take Time, which starts with percussion and some foreign speech set a mood. The tone of voice sounds like storytelling, but the recurring English spoken word samples include phrases like, "That which is now has already been" and "Something is happening, which is not happening at all". The song element reminds me a bit of Feist, but it's more atonal and jerky. The video is beautiful in parts for how it creates the sense of pattern and deeper meaning.

A True Story of a Story of True Love has a sweet arpeggiated guitar that evokes Mary from Robert Fripp's Exposure. The samples of philosophical spoken word seem dissociated from the title and music, so the effect is a bit like coming out of anesthesia. The album has programmed my mood to appreciate the seeming patterns that arise.

The Lemon of Pink needs a beer like Orval, which offers a complexity of flavors. Which do you want to taste now?