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Sophie Rimheden, "Hi-Fi"
An unlistenable solo album is even more disposable than the pop music it pretends to be.
Mitek
It's a good thing that Sophie Rimheden is involved in several other projects at the moment because this unlistenable solo album is even more disposable than the pop music it pretends to be. The opening minute of the first song honestly sounds like the effort of a teenager in 1990 trying to recreate Depeche Mode with a casio keyboard and a drum loop on cassette. It doesn't get much better from there, as the second track is a faux-mash up (are we already to that?!) of "Cruel Summer" and the worst elements of 80's electro pop. The fact that the track derails and skips with the glitch aesthetic of an obvious 2003 production is no salvation for the utterly redundant music being fucked with. Rimheden's vocal style borders on a passable — if uninspiring — Samantha Fox impression, but even that is marred with effects that don't know when to quit and the worst misuse of a vocoder since Cher. I would guess that this album falls squarely into the realm of electro-clash/80's retro-cool, and it should be the number one example looked to when people want to know what's wrong with this forced genre. Every note of this album seems completely plastic, regrettably recalling a decade of music that was made with much more heart and integrity than this. While there is more noise and production trickery here than your typical 80's electro-diva suite, even the experimental aspects of the recording are not unique, novel, or even interesting in juxtaposition with the tired beats and Casiotone synths. Everything sounds thin and forgettable, and there's not a track on this record that I didn't skip through while trying to listen a second time. If Rimheden is trying to make 'happy music,' she's not hit on it here. V/VM bends and warps this kind of stuff into a scathing commentary on pop culture, and some of the electroclash scensters can at least turn a decent tune and recall the excess and vapid fashion of 1983 with some charm, but Hi-Fi is presented as an object of pop culture itself, with nothing to say and no where to go. It's an impressively complete failure.
It's a good thing that Sophie Rimheden is involved in several other projects at the moment because this unlistenable solo album is even more disposable than the pop music it pretends to be. The opening minute of the first song honestly sounds like the effort of a teenager in 1990 trying to recreate Depeche Mode with a casio keyboard and a drum loop on cassette. It doesn't get much better from there, as the second track is a faux-mash up (are we already to that?!) of "Cruel Summer" and the worst elements of 80's electro pop. The fact that the track derails and skips with the glitch aesthetic of an obvious 2003 production is no salvation for the utterly redundant music being fucked with. Rimheden's vocal style borders on a passable — if uninspiring — Samantha Fox impression, but even that is marred with effects that don't know when to quit and the worst misuse of a vocoder since Cher. I would guess that this album falls squarely into the realm of electro-clash/80's retro-cool, and it should be the number one example looked to when people want to know what's wrong with this forced genre. Every note of this album seems completely plastic, regrettably recalling a decade of music that was made with much more heart and integrity than this. While there is more noise and production trickery here than your typical 80's electro-diva suite, even the experimental aspects of the recording are not unique, novel, or even interesting in juxtaposition with the tired beats and Casiotone synths. Everything sounds thin and forgettable, and there's not a track on this record that I didn't skip through while trying to listen a second time. If Rimheden is trying to make 'happy music,' she's not hit on it here. V/VM bends and warps this kind of stuff into a scathing commentary on pop culture, and some of the electroclash scensters can at least turn a decent tune and recall the excess and vapid fashion of 1983 with some charm, but Hi-Fi is presented as an object of pop culture itself, with nothing to say and no where to go. It's an impressively complete failure.samples:
