tunequest

A short seven months after the release of his debut record, Diplomatic Immunity, the unfathomable intergalactic negotiator and groove machine has returned with a most urgent message. You see, The Phantasmal Farm is in danger and in need of saving. The pull of the 8th Dimension has that place of transcendental epiphanies in its grasp and only you, yes you!, can save it. The Polish Ambassador implores ...

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This song is perhaps the greatest mystery in the entirety of my music collection. It's a fairly sophisticated remix of the song Twift Shoeblade from Mouse on Mars' third album Autoditacker (1997). The tempo is a little faster, the arrangement has a little more punch and it has been resequenced slightly. Not to snub the original at all, but I must say I pretty much prefer ...

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From the album Beaucoup Fish (1999) Life, kid, suck, drink from the box, the juice kicks up. yeah. bruce lee. High energy and repetitive, Bruce Lee basically sounds like it was recorded on a manufacturing line. With one verse repeated again and again, Underworld performs an exercise in rhythm and variations on a theme. Using brute force, this thing will pound its way into your head, but for a form ...

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From the album Varcharz (2006) After creating some most infectious and "warm" electronic grooves that were both danceable and singable, Mouse on Mars returned with an album of "spatial free-jazz and cocaine-fried booty funk" on the largely structureless Varcharz. But don't take structureless to mean groundless. Beats are what MoM do best, and while the album has its share of dissonance, it's a noise symphony built on ...

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Anyone who's been around tunequest for a while surely knows of my fondness for The Polish Ambassador, the Earth's greatest half man, half cyborg, all electro-groovin' diplomat. Anyone who is new around here should get up to speed by reading my write-up of his debut album, Diplomatic Immunity. After posting that review, I sent a list of questions to the Ambassador, inquiring about his species, his adventures, ...

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Released in 2001, 10,000 Hz Legend is Air's first proper follow up to their smash Moon Safari. Coming three years after taking the world by storm, the record was much anticipated. Air had carved out a particular niche of upbeat, laid-back retro-electro-lounge and the fans wanted more. MORE! Sadly, anyone who was expecting that was sorely disappointed. Including myself. I admit, it took me a long time ...

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When I was in middle school, I became a big fan of the first few entries to the Mega Man series of games for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. Game play was straight-forward. The stories were fairly one-dimensional Mega Man good; all others bad, but exciting. And each level, named for an element or mineral (Bubble Man, Heat Man, Air Man, etc), proved to be a ...

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In addition to their world-sized beats, The Chemical Brothers are generally known for their world class videos. I stumbled across this video to Star Guitar from the duo's 2002 release Come With Us while perusing the ol' Google Video/YouTube library this afternoon and was quickly fascinated. It was directed by noted film dude Michel Gondry, who's done some impressive work, including intriguing videos for Bjork, Beck, Radiohead ...

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One cold night, during the very cold December of 2000, I found myself at the original Handle Bar myspace warning in downtown Pensacola. Dilapidated doesn't even begin to describe the place, but its rundown condition gave it the perfect character to be a favored destination for the town's surprisingly robust hipster set, until it burned down in 2001. don't worry, the handle bar was rebuilt in ...

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