Freescha - What's Come Inside of You

At the end of 2003 I picked up Amoeba's yearly roundup of favorites, a great source for music you would never have found otherwise.  There were, as always, the world music guys telling me to check out some hot bongo beat (I'm powerless against bongos), some freak who wants me to listen to strictly noise, some retro geek who's listing his top 10 records of 1968 instead, and all the others.  I saw a lot of recommendations, even took a few, but there was one that stuck out. Freescha was in at least 4 or 5 people's top 5 lists, pretty rare when there are hardly any repeats at all in like 100 people's picks.  I don't even remember the descriptions - I knew it was electronic, but some people suggested it was also organic, but all thought it was very good.  I was probably on some techno tip at the time so I circled it with a sharpie and downloaded it later (I've since bought it).  This record is, I just realized now, probably the closest to the Robosexual namesake of all my albums.  With songs like "Laser love" and "Lover function," it is kind of a fusion of old-school funky sexual chocolate and modern electronic weirdness.

"Rinky Dink" kicks it off after a quiet 20 seconds (a trap to make you turn up the volume) with a kind of heavy, mutated surfer beat and claps, like a computer was told to recreate a 1960s beach party in your ears.  Then a little "beeeeoooo" and two hand claps and the Boards of Canada synths drop in with a catchy little tune.  It's an incredibly fun track and gives a good taste of things to come.  "Laser Love" is up next, a strange little ballad with a BoC-sounding beat, twisted, jittered, and with a few extra sex noises, wicky-wickies, and indecipherable filtered voices.  In fact, the BoC sound is pervasive, like if they put out an album that was a little less cryptic and more funky and pornographic.  "Feel Back" might be my favorite song on the album - a distant synth and muffled bass drum float by for a minute, then you are taken surprise by a jerky, constantly-changing beat and velvety, vibrating synth and occasional robotic chirps.  This song and others have a somewhat abrupt break around the middle of the song, at which point the melody, beat, and samples all change (e.g. "Come Good" seems to switch in a bass-heavy, uncensored porn soundtrack with an insane, sliding backwards beat halfway through).

For all the switch-ups, though, the album is a bit homogenous when it comes to sound and texture.  There are myriad mixes and tunes, but mainly it's the same kind of distinctly artificial-sounding synths and well programmed drums.  There are no acoustic breaks or acapella tracks, and people who don't like the sound of the first few songs should know that that's pretty much what they're getting into.  This is not to say that the album is not varied, it's just varied... within certain bounds.  I definitely recommend it to any fans of funky electronica or the general sound of Boards of Canada.
Here's "Feel Back," by Freescha.
and, Here's "Come Good" as well ...because I feel like it!  Three snaps in a triangle!