Saturday, February 25, 2006

Freesound Part 2, Electronic Oddity



Jacky Giordano: Plank
From the album: Challenger [Freesound 1974]
Yan d'Ys & Jacky Giordano: Magolia
From the album: Philopsis [Freesound 1975]
Jacky Giordano & Yan Tregger: Gost
From the album: Schifters [Freesound 1974]

Okay, some people may remember 'Freesound part 1' from a few months ago, where I posted up some of the funkier tunes from the label. In part two we're going to open our minds to the hallucinogenic side of the Freesound catalogue. Get ready some heavy electronics, laced with fucked up beats and bass-lines, all put through reverb, modulators and what not.

We start are journey with the bugged out 'Plank' from the 3rd Freesound LP, the track kicks things off with its addictive bass-line and lovely percussive rhythm, which is all good, now a word of warning to those that aren't keen on anything weird, your best bet is to get off here, before we are subtly taken out of reality, and into orbit with some fuzzy hypnotic synthesiser.

If you had a smile on your face for the whole of 'Plank' then you should enjoy the next song. 'Magolia' opens with one of my favourite breaks, a real funky beastly beat, this is followed by some flashback inducing, hypnotic bass-line and clavichord, and if that's not enough to bring on any visuals take a hit from more diffuse jets of fuzzy synth that sail us out to the end of the track.

Finally for the come down we have 'Gost' from the iconic 'Schifters' LP, Probably my favourite track from the Freesound catalogue. The reason I like this song so much is because it features a very rare thing, an absolutely blinding saxophone solo. From 'My two Dad's' to 'Animal Hospital' the meer toot from a sax sends me running, personally I even find some of Maceo's blowing a bit cringe-worthy at times. The saxophone in 'Gost' is admittedly helped along the way by being fed through some echo/reverb unit, and is accompanied by a tight syncopated rhythm. I've listened to this song so many times and it never fails to do the trick, I hope it works for you.