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Hypo, "Random Veneziano"
Active Suspension
Whether or not Hypo's new album of "music that talks about music" issomething worth listening to depends entirely on your relationship toHypo's very particular ideas about what makes music good and bad. Byhis own admission, the album is a reflection on what he loves and whathe hates about music. It's about disposable pop music and overly-adoredintellectual music, and it works as Hypo's extended middle fingerresponse to supposed "indie" music selling a retreaded version ofthings we have already experienced to a new audience under falsepretenses of novelty. All of that is fine as a treatise against thefashion of popular music, but the album is executed more like arambling blog than a well-documented thesis. It's nearly impossibly toenjoy tracks like "Serpentinouze", even if they are supposed to be apisstake at crappy electroclash and fashion-centric indie pop music.This kind of self-referential musical criticism of other music is atricky thing to pull off. V/VM and Kid606 do it well on occasion, as dothe mashup djs who turn pop songs on their heads. Unfortunately, Hypofails to give us soemthing unique and interesting and new in the wakeof all the whining. If pop music as it is represented here is so bad,and if the people forwarding an agenda of banal and superficial musicare the evil villains of this story, then I'm still waiting for Hypo toproduce the hero. Random Venezianodoes a fair job of chopping up and spitting out pop music cliché byperforming a digital snip and splice job on a lot of annoying sounds,but it all remains annoying in the end. Perhaps Hypo hasactually accomplished his goal too well in that he has created such anappalling mirror image of cheesy music that it is itself equallydisposable and skippable.
Whether or not Hypo's new album of "music that talks about music" issomething worth listening to depends entirely on your relationship toHypo's very particular ideas about what makes music good and bad. Byhis own admission, the album is a reflection on what he loves and whathe hates about music. It's about disposable pop music and overly-adoredintellectual music, and it works as Hypo's extended middle fingerresponse to supposed "indie" music selling a retreaded version ofthings we have already experienced to a new audience under falsepretenses of novelty. All of that is fine as a treatise against thefashion of popular music, but the album is executed more like arambling blog than a well-documented thesis. It's nearly impossibly toenjoy tracks like "Serpentinouze", even if they are supposed to be apisstake at crappy electroclash and fashion-centric indie pop music.This kind of self-referential musical criticism of other music is atricky thing to pull off. V/VM and Kid606 do it well on occasion, as dothe mashup djs who turn pop songs on their heads. Unfortunately, Hypofails to give us soemthing unique and interesting and new in the wakeof all the whining. If pop music as it is represented here is so bad,and if the people forwarding an agenda of banal and superficial musicare the evil villains of this story, then I'm still waiting for Hypo toproduce the hero. Random Venezianodoes a fair job of chopping up and spitting out pop music cliché byperforming a digital snip and splice job on a lot of annoying sounds,but it all remains annoying in the end. Perhaps Hypo hasactually accomplished his goal too well in that he has created such anappalling mirror image of cheesy music that it is itself equallydisposable and skippable.
