ROBOT USA

Editorial Reviews
Album Description
ROBOT USA-- a #2 college radio electronica playlist addition... ROBOT USA was the #2 RPM (Electronica) College Radio Add (added to station playlists) the week of it's release according to CMJ (College Music Journal)... made the RPM Top 10 at many, many college stations... this album of music is stratospherically fun yet meaningful electronic sonic smarts.

Tracks:

have your music
connected
live for centuries
MISSION:MUSIC
letz get optical
Information Highway
for $ale
music for children, of all ages
haunted city
u gotta get mo' hyped!
forgive
the 6th sense
muzack for the death starr, movement I

Album Description

ROBOT USA-- a #2 college radio electronica playlist addition... ROBOT USA was the #2 RPM (Electronica) College Radio Add (added to station playlists) the week of it's release according to CMJ (College Music Journal)... made the RPM Top 10 at many, many college stations... this album of music is stratospherically fun yet meaningful electronic sonic smarts.

Customer Reviews:

death to boring music.......2002-05-30

I truly enjoy this CD. While most electronic music has become
stale and predictable, this CD offers no dull moments. Ranging from freak tech to jazz down tempo, this album combines original music with various samples. Tracks like "connected" (my favorite)and "music for children" feature female vocals and incorporate numerous layers of synth and guitar. Other songs like "forgive" and "for $ale" lean a little to the darker side of things while still maintaining a musical freshness. Down tempo cut "Haunted City" can only be described as Miles Davis playing trumpet over ghetto beats and sirens. The last track, "Muzack for the Death Star" sounds like a crazy, whacked out Atari 2600...fun stuff! All in all it's great to hear an artist release music that isn't boring. Death to boring music!

Pretty nice stuff, would like to hear more.......2002-05-29

I heard parts of this CD on the local college radio underground show and it sounded good so I got it. I generally liked most of the tracks - except for a couple, but then, I never like ALL of the tracks on everything, ya know, picky genius that I am :). If you like Kid Koala or Add-N-to-X or maybe some Beck/Dust Bros. sounds, you should like this. Not bad for what I assume is a first CD by this artist.

Not bad for a bedroom recording........2000-12-28

But not good, really. Let's call it 2.5 stars. Robot USA is a wholly derivative work, with no original ideas to recommend itself, but some decent musical invention that may bear fruit in future work. I picked it up because I heard "muzack for the death starr" on some internet radio or another, and I thought it had promise. In fact, the whole thing has promise, but that promise is never delivered on.

You get the usual assortment of sampled fifties sounding voices portentiously expounding on some scifi gobbeldygook, ala Clock DVA (Voice Recognition Test); You have some preacher-sampling, after the fashion of My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Eno and Byrne; and you have a lot of cheap and textureless synth which is only about two and a half steps better than internet midi.

Musically, there are a few sparks, as in "have your music" where there is some worthwhile musical invention, and a bit of pleasant texture introduced by Brian Burlingame's guitar. Also "forgive" has some promising tones (this is the preacher track). The track that sold me on the cd is musically intriguing, although the synth is particularly plinky and textureless here ("muzack for the death starr").

There are also some real duds that are either not to me personal taste or laughably bad, such as "MISSION:MUSIC" (terrible 70s-ish orchestration with unfortunate funk), "music for children (of all ages)" (the abcs song just doesn't work, no matter how remixed), or "haunted city" (the attempt at heavy germanic industrial falls flat on its face).