Feed Me - Escape From Electric Mountain - Album Review

Album Rating:

8

As the music industry progresses towards minimizing efforts and maximizing profits, it makes the benchmark of this industry: an album, a more and more dubious endeavor for artists to consider as an option. In its place are singles, mixtapes, remixes, edits, bootlegs, an amalgamation of compilations, etc.. But one thing that is becoming more and more a viable and lucrative option for musicians to recur some profit off of their artistry is the ever-lasting EP or “extended play” record.

A tight knit collection of anywhere between 2-7 or so tracks that are put into a smaller, more condensed, and focused mini-album. It can contain all the same elements of an LP, collaborations, custom artwork, sold at fine retailers, but in EDM they can also have one original track, and 6 remix collaborations that are another artists reinterpretation of the same track. Another caveat to the allure of the EP, is that a lot of artists will take advantage of this avenue and put out a side-project from one of their alter-ego’s. Enter Jon Gooch, aka Spor, aka Feed Me.

The first track I heard from Spor’s departure from the grimey, UK drum n’ bass scene he was entrenched in was a pop/dubstep/electro track for Sweden’s chanteuses Robyn named, “Call Your Girlfriend”. This track was one of my favorite bangers all year, I used it for my 2011 Concert/Rave Reel and included it in my favorite top 5 tracks of the year on Cool Breezy’s 5 Jams of 2011.

Escape From Electric Mountain picks up where his last EP To The Stars on Mau5trap left off, a glitchy, fidgety but albeit extremely easy to listen to eletro house that can be thick with elements of dupstep, but with an overwhelming sense of being able to dance to this. Escape From Electric Mountain is very successful at weaving a layered, complex, track that is designed to be able to handle a variety of changes as each one moves from one to the next.

Stand out cuts for me on this offerring are his collaborations with Hadouken!, a vicious blend of hard hitting drops that culminates after front man James Smith exclaims: “I WON’T FALL DOWN YOUR TRAPDOOR!”. He tempers the crushing aspects of “Trapdoor” with another collab by Lyndsay and crafts together a soulful, ballad that departs from the hard-hitting, verbal intercourse that gives his songs their edge. His ability to balance between the filthy elements that are apparent in electronic music, but his ability to marry that with the more beautiful elements of house music and sweeping melodies makes his mainstream appeal even more enticing. With these two tracks alone, the listener get’s a sense that he is able to toe the line between making radio-friendly bangers, and dance floor eruptions that appeal to a wide-range of casual electronic music lovers, newcomers, and old fans of his other projects.

There are a few people that I’m predicting to have a big year, and some of these will come to no surprise to the 6.5 readers that read the words I write about the growing expanse of electronically produced music. Besides DC hometown hero’s of Nadastrom, Tittsworth, Alvin Risk, Charlotte’s David Heartbreak, Rotterdam’s Munchi, Sazon Booya from Brooklyn, Pickster One from Arizona, and Hertfordshire’s Feed Me will have the advantage of having the next 10 months to craft out their strategy for seizing their own success’.

Nooch