nostalgia

When my flatmate decided to copy some of my CDs, he stumbled upon an album I haven't heard for a really long time. It was Bran Van 3000's Discosis. The second CD I ever bought in Germany (the first being Pulp's This is Life and the third was The Strokes' Is This It and the fourth was Led Zeppelin II. What came after those four I haven't got the slightest clue). It's been almost 5 years since I heard it, and hearing it now, I was surprised I didn't hear it more often*. Hearing it now, not only does it bring back memories of Berlin, where I lived back then, but also my last few months in Indonesia where I heard the (I think) lead-off single Astounded non-stop, which is also the opening gambit of this underappreciated album. Astounded sampled a Curtis Mayfield song and drenched it in some wicked beats and string arrangement. A brilliant song. But just an appetizer for the things to come. What followed it was 16 genre hopping songs that not only have georgeous melodies but also great, not to mention funny lyrics, that covered electronica, rock, rap, world and latin music to name but just a few, that aren't afraid to surprise listeners with interesting twists and turns. My pick of the bunch have to be the aforementioned Astounded, both of the Yussou N'dour featured tracks : Montreal and Senegal, the rock pastiche sing-a-long Love Cliche, Loaded, a song which started as a standard rock song before dissolving into a flurry of saxophone and samples with Big Daddy Kane rapping over it, and.... Fuck this. The album is brilliant. Get it.



*Actually, my classic rock phase kicked in after that. Cue more Led Zep, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple et al. What didn't feature a guitar wasn't a real song back then. How young and naive I was back then.