Nosaj Thing - Drift [Album]

Alpha Pup

June 25, 2009, 07:59 PM

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Jason Chung is Nosaj Thing and he's been putting himself about a bit of late. What with a regular spot at Low End Theory (a club night in his hometown of LA), remixing friend and label mate Flying Lotus and now releasing his debut long player Drift he's one busy chap.

Listening to this album makes me wish I still smoked weed. This is a collection of hip hop beats run over with a collection of synths and sound effects creating a sometimes cold, sparse and naggingly incomplete work. It is more like a framework or a backdrop in need of a vocal artist to make sense of it all. There in lies the drawback of letting the synths do all the talking.

That's not to say this is a poor album. Not at all - 'Coat of Arms' is effectively haunting but at the same time has a nice urgent techno blip over the top and a good old fashioned hand clap keeping things moving along whilst '1010' picks up the tempo some but does on occasion sound like a Daft Punk off-cut with its heavily engineered keys.

'1685/Bach' gets you involved with a distorted stomp along thing going on but never really gets anywhere, which is the fundamental flaw of Drift. It is interesting to a point with some involving sections but it all washes over too easily. I can't help but feel that right now out there somewhere - most likely Vegas - a 'cool' young magician is fannying about on stage to this music doing pointless things to a tiger with a sword.

Closer 'Lords' is what happens when electronic music goes to church - all sampled choirs and echoey church sounds but like many of the tracks here it just fades to nothing. There is a distinct lack of narrative and cohesion running through the album and it's a real shame because there is promise galore here and signs of better things to come.

Sorry Nosaj, it's not a bad first effort but if it's a chunk of experimental electronica with a hip hop flavour you're after then you still can't do better than those Boards of Canada.

Nosaj Thing - LAtronica with a Hip Hop beat.

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