Paul McCartney & Freelance Hellraiser Twin Freaks Really love you Long hairded lady (reprise) Rinse the raindrops Darkroom Live and let die Temporary secretary What's that you're doing Oh woman, oh why Mumbo Lalula Coming up Maybe I'm amazed

Paul appears in 2005 with this collaboration with DJ Freelance Hellraiser, who had been doing the opening set for Paul's recent European tour. The vinyl / digital download release (rumours of a Brazilian CD release haven't been confirmed as this page is created) brings that music in extended format. A few vinyl singles cointaining material from the LP have been released as well. I'm not really the most qualified peson to review this; first, because I'm not particulary a fan of dance music; second, because I don't really have the necessary knowledge to judge it, so all I have to offer are some impressions. First of all, this has nothing to do with Fireman, as one could expect. It's much more dance orientated work, wlthough not quite as the Wingspan remixes that appeared when it was released. DJ music conquered a certain place among some 90s intelectuals, who saw in sampling and re-sequencing some sort of respectable artistic attitude. Although I feel it has been overpopularized now - which is yet another subject for academical investigation - this possibility of reflection does appeal a little to me. On that sense, there's a moment on the album when we hear Paul talking about people going out of their world and entering the Twin Freaks world; that was quite nice and summarizes the best side of the LP's project. But that intelectual approach afinity would be for dj music in general, and I couldn't tell what differs this release from all the other similar music that's been going on. But, as I said, I'm not an expert on that. I mean, it's obvious that Twin Freaks offers a more artistic approach to the remixes than many other stuff we've heard, but I can't have a more detailed explanation on why's that.

Of course this is intended to a special kind of public. But being part of the 0.0000000001% of the world's population who actually uses music as a listening pleasure and not as part of the ambience, I'm mostly interested in enjoying the sound. And musically, it just doesn't appeal much to me, although I tend to like the beat, specially when it's more openly mixed to rock'n'roll language. If Paul wasn't envolved, it's certain that I wouldn't even bother to read about it. At the same time it's great that he is, because that moves us beatlemaniacs from some incercy and puts us in touch with a whole new experience, which of course is yet another contribution. Of course there are good and bad moments, with some over-repeats, like in "Live and let die" and "Maybe I'm amazed", that I find really boring. Also, it might be stupid of me, but even though I listen to very little dj music, I still think some of the effects used appear on a lot of what I already know, and I get the feeling that a little more creativity was to be expected. On the other hand, the emphasys on the bass on certain tracks such as "Really love you" is such a great item. I'd say the LP has the aditional value of rescuing some of Paul's lesser known work, which of course deserves to be heard. Also, it's a fun game to try to identify where all the sampled of the album come from. Some of the mixtures are quite insightful, and I'm still enjoying fooling around with the beautiful "Lalula" after many listenings. Above all this, I think there's also a moral value on the release. It kind of makes me proud that Paul would get involved in such a project at this stage of his career. He could be sitting at the top of his sucess, doing "Yesterday" all over again, but he's taking his chances with this instead. While as I said this is not my kind of music (So what? As if Paul was writing on demand to me...), it's refreshing to see that Paul is keeping himself busy with what's going on on various areas, as his alternative projects have always shown, searching new ways to express himself and creating new paths that will eventually enrich his more conventional work. My conclusion is that to many listeners this may be no Sgt. Pepper's, but it's still a refreshing artistic experience. One might say Paul shouldn't fool around with this, but for what it represents I still think it's very worth the risk.

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