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Herbert, "Scale"
After puzzling some and dazzling others with the bizarre and inaccessible detour 'Plat Du Jour', Matthew Herbert makes a long awaited, though less than thrilling, return to the forward-thinking discotheque.
While avant garde audiophiles oohed and aahed over that 2005 release as well as his "big band" excursion two years prior, many of us were instead eagerly awaiting a proper follow-up to the critically acclaimed and dancefloor endorsed Bodily Functions. From the opening squelches and four-to-the-floor thump of "Something Isn't Right," it becomes abundantly clear that Herbert has at last returned to us, his personal politics remaining on display. However, Scale is hardly as memorable or classic as Bodily Functions, despite the welcome presence of chanteuse Dani Siciliano on nearly every single track. Though there are a number of moments where Herbert's deft programming and sample construction shines, this album never quite gets back to heights once achieved.
On more than a few occasions here, Herbert seems to be mining kitsch for kitsch's sake, and however lovingly, that trick seems intellectually tiresome much like Uwe Schmidt's now quite overdone electro-latino wankery as Señor Coconut. Take "Moving Like A Train," for instance, whose gratuitous tooted horns and sampled strings sound like some ridiculous television program's opening theme. I'd like to believe that most listeners have grown bored with this tongue-in-cheek, winking eye approach to a saccharine retro sound that was never really all that great to begin with. If they haven't yet, they probably should.
I fully grasp Herbert's attempt at a clever fusion of socially conscious and political content with syrupy soundtracks, though it's hardly the most original concept in these days of excessive hipster irony. "Birds Of A Feather" actually pulls its off fairly well, where animal rights takes centerstage while a modern syncopated rhythm supports the light albeit urgent musical mix.
A victim of my own expectations, I wanted to like this album a lot more than I ultimately did. I had half hoped that Herbert would have given us more funky cool house and less loungey jazz clutter, thinking perhaps naively that he might have gotten it out of his system on the interim albums. Instead, Scale presents us with a patchwork of smirks and pokes, nudges and judgements, rarely offering up something other than derivative schmaltz.
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