When I discovered Rostam Batmanglij of Vampire Weekend and Wes Miles of Ra Ra Riot teamed up to form Discovery I was somewhat excited. I think it is such a great idea for musicians to depart from their projects and try new things. This allows them to explore ideas and feed off of a different type of energy then they are use too. In the case of Discovery the energy had hot, steamy sex and produced indie, bedroom R&B.
The first song on the album of this twisted R&B baby is “Orange Shirt”, which at first is intriguing and fresh. Rapidly the sound of “LP” became stale, overly electronic, and harsh. It is obvious that these two had no idea of how to program or produce in a soulful manner. This isn’t bad in all cases, but in the case of Discovery I am almost offended that people believe every R&B and hip hop song has to have ridiculous, machinegun hi hat patterns and 808 kick drums. Throughout the album Discovery chops their own vocals to have the appearance of sampling, but once again they seem to have no knowledge of sampling or chopping. Then I realized I had heard something like this before….and it dawned on me it was every 17 year old’s early experiments with Fruity Loops.
As the album progresses it drags on and on. It continues through terrible 90s drum patterns, more over the top chopped vocals, and even an autotuned Jackson 5 cover (which I will not even address) blended with ridiculous sounding plugin synths that have no body, depth, or analog flavor to them. Not to mention Rostam and Wes’ vocals are weak for this style of music. Kudos for the try, but without the depth and power this is not R&B.
While “LP” is an intriguing synth driven album it still sounds like white kids sitting in their bedroom who just up and decided to sound like their favorite 90s Jock Jam CDs. I would recommend skipping this one all together. The artwork and initial sound made me jump at first with excitement, but after a couple minutes it loses its shock value and the disappointment sets in. I think the collaborative attempt is the genius of Discovery. Often times when artists create together it isn’t the product that is the champion of the success… it’s the process. In this process they tried something new and different for them, and walked away learning. I think the music misses the mark, but maybe the collaboration did not.
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Fri, Aug 28, 2009
Album Reviews, Music