A CD REVIEW OF MASHED BUDDHA'S 'ZEN CONSPIRACY'

When we final left John Corda, in the guise of drum 'n' drum superhero Mashed Buddha, on his full-length CD overpower your mind, he was adding elements, low-pitched elements, to a genre which doesn't go many past automatic exercise in stroke and bleating electro sounds for tunes. To this, he combined ideas such as component songs - with themes which have been developed, opposite levels of receptive to advice density, set up ups and mangle downs - and adding elements of funk, singular groove, and complicated bass. Mashed Buddha conceives of his songs and his complete annals in compositional terms. In alternative words, on Zen Conspiracy he keeps things relocating similar to in any great story.

The pretension lane has a noble intro and afterwards the jungle slit kicks in similar to the opening credit method of the coolest noir romance. The relentless, overjoyed drum kick undergirds soulful piano, skittering synth sounds, and low drum which rumbles with syncopation similar to dub reggae on ecstasy. The mangle down adds the earthiness of Afro-Cuban drums and percussion and Latin piano loops which elicit noir mystery. The song's elements mix, match, swoop down and buildup to astonishing plateaus of resolution. Like his preview EP Four Keys to Zen, this jot down brings in the component of jazz improvisation. Corda plays a square for one person which jazzes out but in the soul/blues styles of Ramsey Lewis or Stevie Wonder. This organic, earthbound component offers a good contrariety to the electronica, pumping some-more red blood in to the music.

Simplicity earnings with the short pause "Laz" . Based on a elementary musty flicker over and clocking in at about 90 seconds, it still has a hymn and chorus, played on abounding sounding keyboards and a changeable percussive lane over a phat drum beat, which creates this an tangible song. This leads to the subsequent cut, "Temptation" . This strain has an easy slit which invites sampling for a rapper, but usually one which is carrying an early '90s flashback. The churned marks of clavinet-sounding keyboards have been simply fresh. Corda's square for one person has an unobstructed happiness in the daub dancing rhythms and unenlightened symphonic runs. The changeable harmonies keep the strain from removing static, and the adaptation of the assorted melodies and sounds, all office building off of one elementary riff, have been a doctrine is how to write a torpedo track. The set of keys runs dump out, multiply, covering over, and move divided from each other. Mashed Buddha regularly has something function in his songs.

"Hype" shows how many nuanced feeling can be communicated by electronica. The beat, a buoyant essence stone slit which is churned with a repeated receptive to advice of retreat echoes or a camera shiver - hype, ya heard? - and low finish synth licks, is undiluted for the unusual vogueing which is going on… in my mind. Over tip of this rolling stream of receptive to advice have been mysterioso vocals of a self-help inlet by the mind-bender Uri Geller; who mutters phrases like, "part 3 stay positive, loose and confident" and "part one clearing your mind" which additionally deftly outrider an additional instrumental covering or opposite tune from the keyboard. Each component combined is not usually complementary, but of a opposite texture. After the mangle down, formerly listened tools of the strain - Fender Rhodes chords, groan synthesizers - come back, but in a grown or changed state. The synth gets edgier, the hype shiver receptive to advice gets denser, the low finish blasts onward with a nasty fuzzzzz sound.

Just when you suspicion he would decline a bit from the killin' ideas and playing, he picks up the gait and not usually gets some-more intense, but weirder. "Tryst" is maybe the quintessential strain on the CD. The kick is jungle drum 'n' drum at the many frenzied. The set of keys flicker over is a multiple of chords and tune filtered by the densest white noise. The drum kick is churned with percussive ghosts of receptive to advice which fly around similar to insects. A opposite tune plays with a receptive to advice similar to the bright organ of Mike Ratledge of the Soft Machine. The square builds similar to a walker rock rock climbing a slant to the turn peak, resting, afterwards rock rock climbing the subsequent hill. In the center of the song, there is the roughly normal electronica mangle down. But distinct the cliched mangle with a bleating mechanoid beat or a wannabe Latin set of keys riff, here the strain rolls in to a swirling tsunami of electronic and percussive sounds. The crashing of the waves slides in to a celestial clouded cover of soulful jazz. Here, Corda takes a piano square for one person which rocks one soulful matter after the other, bringing which old time leisure jazz feeling to finish of the low-pitched journey.

"Arcane Persuasion" ends the CD with a slow, stately, Gothic finale. A siren organ opens, afterwards the bleating mechanoid receptive to advice I dissed progressing comes in, but morphs in and out of wandering glockenspiel records and hairy tubular bells.

Let's be clear: I wouldn't contend I'm an electronica fan by any stretch. Most of it is tedious and soulless and uninspired. It says a lot about an artist when he can take tools of a character of strain one hates and have strain one likes. It's similar to branch s%$t in to gold. His subsequent jot down should be called The Alchemist.

http://www.mashedbuddha.com

http://www.myspace.com/mashedbuddha