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Scott Solter, "The Brief Light"
Adding to my theory that producers shouldn't write and release records of their own is this gem of an "ethnic" electronic record. Scott Solter is a name some might identify with Spoon, Court and Spark, or Tarentel, but don't let their better records fools you: The Brief Light is a mess of an album with few strengths to speak of.In order to be clear, I should re-emphasize how much I hate records that try to sound "ethnic," like they were born and raised in Malaysia or Africa and obviously have enough knowledge to write an album that fuses the musical styles from those regions with our own. In fact, most of these people have probably only heard a Deep Forest record or two and think they can get away with stealing their ideas and reformatting them. Solter, on the other hand, thinks that a mindlessly arranged record of exotic instruments is enough to carry an album without sinking it beneath the weight of its own fraudulence. There's more dub music in The Brief Light than anything else, but instead of emphasizing the bass all the time, Solter adds keyboard flourishes and guitar rolls worthy of the worst new age compilations featuring John Tesh and Yanni.
The sounds are all amazingly well mixed and produced, vibrantly clear and astoundingly rich, it's just that their arrangement sucks and the mood they create reminds me more of an exhibit at a cheap zoo than of a rain forest or an exotic locale filled with strange sounds and music. John Lomax might've spoiled me with his field recordings and a string of "world" albums released in field recording format (that is, the album really is a recording of natives performing their distinct music) opened my eyes to how exotic music can be, so fodder like this just upsets me and reminds me that there are still hippies out there obsessed with chilling out to the latest wank from some guys who think wooden drums are cool and that Casio keyboards sound great with them.
There are a few bands that have successfully used ethnic music to their advantage and made something beautiful with it (go check out Black Ox Orkestar and their klezmer music for an example of how to do it right), but Solter has only reinforced my belief that it's just about impossible to do without sounding cheesy. I do, however, like the way the album was packaged. It's the same price as any jewel case release but it's housed in a very pretty weave that unfolds to reveal the track listing and individuals involved in the making of the record. If only the group had a coherent idea of what to do with their exotic sound palette, then maybe the music would have been as quality as the packaging and I could stop getting angry over people raping the idea of "exotic" and "ethnic" music.
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