Staff Reports
Arizona Daily Wildcat
March 5, 1998

Music Meltdown

B-Tribe

Sensual Sensual

(Atlantic)

A few years ago, my family and I were seated at a restaurant in Del Mar, Calif., patiently waiting to be served quesadillas. It was a beachside MexiCali-style New Age place, right down to the rawhide chairs covered with Guatemalan weavings on the flagstone patio under the octocillo-ribbed roof. I remember that restaurant so well because of two things: the atmosphere had been created so intricately it left a lasting impression, right down to what I ate, and secondly, because the background music was my first introduction to flamenco guitar.

B-tribe brought that memory back - they take that new-age-flamenco-cool-California restaurant-background-music thing almost to its limit, if it even has a limit. Flamenco guitar, slow-jam hip-hop beats, Gregorian chants, Andean flutes (think Enigma), jazz and electric guitar riffs form this weird mish-mash that makes you want to eat quesadillas at The Fine Line. It's relaxation-tape-esque, but with a little more flair - in other words, it has both structure and melody. Catchy, yet the kind of music that would subliminally put you in the mood to buy rocks at the Nature Company. Think of fake mall waterfalls and Rainforest Crunch. Rainsticks and earth-tone tigres for your environmental decor. Dancing on an outdoor veranda after several margaritas with a sexy latino named Roberto.

Going back to the subliminal message statement (since that's what instrumental music is all about anyway, right?),Sensual Sensual should be nearby when ethereal forces rear their pulsating heads and you feel the need to be at one with the tigres and the waterfalls.

-Annie Holub

Promised Land

The Fourth Dimension

(Mutant)

Jungle fever: The latest offering from the world of drum 'n' bass to land on my desk is a two CD compilation entitled The Fourth Dimension. This release highlights some of the most obscure and boring d&b artists from London, including Helen T, Slipmaster J, Time Signature, In Deep, Parralax, Focus and more.

The main problem with this album is the way in which the beats and samples seem to have been doused with a heavy spray of cold water, giving them a light and not-so-jungle feel. The scarcity of the music makes it sound more ambient or housey than drum & bass, which isn't really what most people would be looking for in an album of the genre.

The liner notes state that leading drum & bass labels always have had a particular DJ to promote their sound; names like Goldie, Roni Size and LTJ Bukem are dropped and Slipmaster J is claimed to be in the same realm of electronic quality. Sorry? Compare Goldie and the Metalheadz to Slipmaster J and the Promised Land and I think you'll see who is a better DJ. It's not old Slippy there, that's for sure.

The only decent stuff on the album comes from the Drawback Hill, with their track "Chocolate Sushi." It may be a bit on the light side - but at least it has a side. There's some rhythm to the music and you can hear the beats a little. It's no Grooverider, but it'll do.

-James Casey

Various Artists

Great Expectations: The Album

(Atlantic)

There have been very few truly great movie soundtracks released - Great Expectations isn't one of them. It is, however, still worth owning; so much so, that I have actually defied my own edict to never possess anything that in any way, shape, or form contains the music of the Greatful Dead. Yes, "Uncle John's Band" makes an appearance on the CD, but it's way toward the end, and if you stop listening halfway through, you can not only save yourself from hearing that song, but numbers by Iggy Pop and The Verve Pipe as well. In other words, most of the good stuff comes early on.

The album opens with two tracks by Tori Amos - one that is paradoxically labeled as an "instrumental vocalization," called "Finn (Intro)" and the other, the first new real song from the fiery chanteuse in a years, "Siren." Seething with impassioned vocals and Tori's trademarked piano and harpsichord mastery, "Siren" leaves you wishing for more.

"Life In Mono," the third track, comes from Mono, the trip-hoppy duo that mix the sounds of '60s pop into their sultry songs. The film may be responsible for some of its success, but the quality of the track could carry it without any help.

There's also solo material from two newly bandless singers, Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland. Cornell gives in to his more melodic side on "Sunshower," more reminiscent of the often touching tones of his Temple Of The Dog work than anything he ever did with Soundgarden, while Weiland brings in the burlesque on "Lady, Your Roof Brings Me Down," proving that not all of Stone Temple Pilots' problems were his fault.

Throw in Poe, Duncan Sheik, Pulp and more, and you should have at least good expectations for this disc, although "great" is really pushing it.

- Doug Levy

Young Bleed

My Balls and My Word

(No Limit)

At first it seemed like everybody and their mom in the state of Louisiana who could put two rhyming sentences together was given a record contract by Master P. Everywhere you looked there was another No Limit record, with those weak-ass computer generated covers, and Master P doing that annoying moan on every track.

On Young Bleed's debut album My Balls and My Word, the emcee from Baton Rouge shows that there truly is some musical talent in "Da Boot." Young Bleed offers 14 tracks of tight bass lines and lyrics that appear to be realism and not fascination. It is the kind of compact disc that you keep in your car, the one that becomes your soundtrack every time you cruise the streets.

On the first 11 tracks, you begin to wonder if this truly is a Young Bleed album or if he is just being featured on it, as Young Bleed spits a verse on each track while all the other No Limit soldiers take over the rest. In all, eight other rappers are featured on My Balls and My Word. On the last few tracks, though, Young Bleed does not disappoint, showing that he can carry an entire song. One of the hottest songs is "Da Last Outlaw," which provides sound clips from the movie "Young Guns."

Finding its way into the club scene is "How You Do Dat," which features Master P and C-Loc. It's one of those jams where the chorus gets stuck in your head, and you force yourself to keep listening. Fortunately, C-Loc provides some rhymes that make the repetition livable.

-Joel Flom