Various Artists:
"Teen Dance Music From China And Malaysia"
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Audio fragment of this record in the Audioquarium |
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Audio fragment of this record in the Audioquarium |
| RATE: | ++++ very good! |
| REVIEW: | A new label on the block, and its first release is a really nice surprise: 18 tracks taken from Cinese and Malaysian records by groups who were trying to imitate the Western "go-go" and psychploitation styles. The fun begins when they innocently throw together a lot of western musical elements, not impeded by any stylistic "rules" -- the "do's and dont's" that make most Western music so predictable. At first hearing, the Oriental influences in the Go-Go/pop/rock music might not be apparent, but slowly you begin to realise there's something quite odd about this music, though maybe you can't really put your finger on it. After a while, you hear vaguely Oriental touches, apparently randomly mixed with influences from spaghetti westerns, including gun shots (plenty of those) and horse sounds, and whistling, Latin rhythm sections... The results are a bit disorientating sometimes, as in "Tabu" where classic exotica is mixed with outer space sound effects; or in "Cella-la" with Chipmunks voices backed by belly dance music. Strange indeed, but not over-the-top. Just great fun. |
| SLEEVE NOTES: |
Ran into a small batch of Southeast Asian records at a thrift store this past winter. All dumb luck and good timing, the owner had dropped them off in brown paper bags an hour before I got there. It was hard for me not to get my hopes up þipping through them - the jackets seemed to indicate that I was really scoring. No dates, but they all looked late 60's/early 70's with psychedelia- meets-the-dance-floor cover art and "A-Go-Go" suffixes left and right.
I spent the next week plus locked up in my tiny music closet pouring over them and made this CD with the stuff I liked. A lot of ground's covered here from Spy Music to Spaghetti Western, Polynesiana to Cha-Cha-Cha, Pop Rock to Old Standards, and some hard to categorize Ethereal Teen Space Music. It's all instrumental, most with (((spaced-out))) organ, guitar, bass, and drums - and all with a very special and strange sound all their own. You'll hear some of the tracks suddenly speed up or slow down here and there, same goes with the vinyl copies and I saw no reason to change it. I did alter one of the Stylers' and one of the Silverstones' extended medleys for brevity (15 minute tracks weren't gonna flow too easily with the rest of this stuff). The Stylers' "Spy Medley" was left intact for good measure. A few of the song titles were indecipherable to my non-bilingual self and are noted as such. This random lot of LPs must be just the tippity-top of the iceberg for Southeast Asian teen pop. Many were labeled "Vol. 8", "Vol. 12", etc., and those were just examples of one particular style by one artist! Somebody REALLY needs to get on over to Singapore and dig up some more of this stuff - gotta be tons more out there. In the meantime, take a ride down an apricot blossom stream and enjoy yourself. WL, 07/01 |
| TRACKS: |
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| DETAILS: |
artist: Various Artists
title: "Teen Dance Music From China And Malaysia" label info: CD, Thrift Score Records 001, USA, 2002 |
| AVAILABLE FROM: | Aquarius Records (USA), Jack Diamond Music (USA) |
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