VOICES OF NATIVE AMERICA••••
CD-ROM (AKAI, ROLAND, EMU, KURZWEIL, SAMPLECELL)
As the title implies, this album isn't short on American Indian vocal sounds -- in fact, there's a huge selection of phrases, grunts and general tribal stuff that can readily be woven into world or ambient compositions. In addition to the voices, there's a really nicely sampled selection of Indian percussion, including rattles and shakers, and of course there's the Indian flute. As in many such libraries, the flute phrases are really just tunes broken down into phrases, and if you're really clever, you can recreate the original tune by stringing the samples together in the right order! The sampling quality is fine, but I was disappointed not to find any really nice multisampled flutes -- there was a time when you could load samples and play a tune on them...
Oddly, this is the third disc in a row I've tried where if you load a full volume, all the samples play at once, so you have to load one program at a time. If this weirdness persists, I shall have to consider it as a divine suggestion for an article on the subject. If anyone else has come across oddities when loading commercial sample CD-ROMs into different generations of Akai sampler, please write in and let us know.
Purely because of the breadth of vocal material on this disk, it has to be worth four points, but the sample mapping and organisation could have been better in places. For example, rather than give you a different vocal phrase in every key, some programs load up multitimbrally with one phrase per MIDI channel, and just three semitones of transposability per sample. That leaves a lot of empty keyboard! Still, you can't dispute the quality of the samples, and if you're into North American Indian sounds, this has to be the disk to go for. Paul White
£ Audio CD £59.95; CD-ROM £159.95. Prices include VAT.
A Keyfax Software, PO Box 4408, Henley-On-Thames, Oxon, RG9 1FS.
T 01491 413938.
F 01491 413938.
BILL BRUFORD'S PACKET OF THREE••••
(AUDIO CD, AKAI CD-ROM, MIDI FILE DISK)
This sample set from Keyfax is a little unusual, as it is available as an audio CD, an Akai-format CD-ROM, and a PC-format floppy disk of standard MIDI files containing the same rhythms as on the sample discs. Those familiar with Bill Bruford's work will know that he's a drummer with an impressive provenance, and true to form, he's come up with a whole selection of drum loops played on acoustic kits, tuned percussion, Simmons kits and who knows what else. Though rhythmically useful in a fairly broad context, Bill's loops are far from pedestrian, and aptly demonstrate his virtuosity and love of unusual time signatures. There are plenty of straight grooves (if anything Bill plays can actually be called straight), but other examples are weird enough that you'd normally have to write a song around them rather than making them fit into an existing piece of music.
As you'd expect from a player of Bill Bruford's calibre, the playing is imaginative, tight and beautifully recorded, so if you want a little something for the weekend, Packet Of Three comes highly recommended. Paul White
£ MIDI file disk £24.95; Audio CD £59.95; Akai CD-ROM £149.95. Prices include VAT.
A Keyfax Software, PO Box 4408, Henley-On-Thames, Oxon, RG9 1FS.
T 01491 413938.
F 01491 413938.
VOCAL XTC•••••
(AUDIO CD)
Sample CDs featuring vocals have always been something of an oddity. Buying a collection of 'oohs' and 'ahhs' is one thing, but any release that gives you a huge selection of musical hooks and riffs sung with lyrics seems to provoke the most raised eyebrows from traditional songwriters and performers. And this is perhaps understandable; after all, the idea is that someone provides entire top lines to be simply slotted over an existing backing track, and this could well serve to reduce the role of the modern songwriter even further.
It is against this backdrop of moral and musical questions that we find Vocal XTC, an interesting and innovative 66-track audio CD from Time & Space. Perhaps realising that session singers are generally fed up with some remixers and producers nicking sections of their performances to use in their own tracks and then having to sort out the legal mess afterwards (providing private education for the children of countless lawyers in the process), Time & Space have decided to produce and record a large number of these short phrases, give due credit to the vocalists and treat them just like any other soundware product.
The tracks on this CD fall into a number of different sections. By far the largest section is dedicated to soulful ad-libbed phrases: 'Can you feel it', 'Ohh yeah', 'Move it on Wooh Yeah' -- all of which sound much more natural than they look in print. Although there are a large number of dedicated lyrical lines, the emphasis tends to be on the kind of short phrases often used in contemporary remixes than on a complete song that someone has written for you to sample from.
There is a balanced mixture of male and female vocals, and sound-wise they cover a large number of styles, from soul and pop right through to jazzy scat vocals. There's even an energetic indie/rock male vocalist! In amongst the solo lines, most performers also present a few well chosen harmonies, and very nice they are too.
The last third of the disc is taken up by a 9-piece gospel choir impressing the pants off any listener with accurate and beautifully arranged harmonies. As well as providing the obvious gospel lines, the choir offers some truly wonderful wordless blocks of harmony which should find their way into all sorts of tracks.
There are a few classical-sounding vocals, including some operatic-type lines and the odd chant, but this seems to be the minority section of the release, which I have to say is a bit of a shame. With pop/dance, R&B and gospel styles so well catered for here, I felt that the CD could have done with a bit more attention to the experimental areas of vocal treatment and dared to step away from the mainstream, which is where the bulk of its focus lies.
Having said that, all the vocals are listed with their bpms and relevant key signatures, and are sensibly recorded, without reverb, leaving the user to make the effects decisions on mixdown. At just over 58 minutes, it certainly isn't the longest CD on the market, but providing the contact number for all the featured session singers is a brilliant idea, and might even lead some producers to use the samples to demo tracks, and then get the actual singers to re-sing or adapt parts for a master recording. Whilst this CD may not be exactly perfect, its attention to detail and wide number of styles makes it pretty damn close. Paul Farrer
£ £59.95 including VAT and UK p&p.
A Time and Space, Owlsfoot Business Centre, Sticklepath, near Okehampton, Devon EX20 2PA.
T 01837 841100.
F 01837 840080.
FRESH KILLED MEAT -- PRIME FUNK•••••
(AUDIO CD)
I've been dreading listening to this; it's the difficult third album for AMG from Keith Le Blanc (he of Tackhead fame). Can Keith pull off another groundbreaking sonic coup de grace? Or am I going to be sorely disappointed? Time to whop in the CD and find out...
Tracks 1 to 20 each feature one (occasionally two or three) multi-bar loops combining completely mad and often unexpected techno noises with pretty sparse (by Keith's standards) live and funky drumming. Tempos are quoted throughout the CD, and average out at just below 100bpm. The basic kit sound is tight rather than heavy, and reverb is featured frequently; some drums are heavily effected, with serious treatments, while others are left dry. Not all the beats are 4/4 -- listen to the delicious hi-hat work on 'Three-four'. I particularly liked 'Dabla', where a snares-off sound meets a didgeridoo. To get a general idea of the territory Keith's head occupies at the moment, imagine quantised rhythmic tuning of a shortwave radio through a fuzzbox superimposed on a clean and crisp studio drumkit playing slow monoto-funk. Sounds jarring, doesn't it? Whether the ingredients blend is a matter of personal taste. They don't seem to at first, but as the tracks go by...
Tracks 21 to 50 comprise sets of tempo-matched loops. By around track 30, the electronics are beginning to take a back seat, leaving Keith's drumming exposed. Yep, he can still cut the Colmans. The mix does rather tend to understate the hi-hat somewhat, which is a pity, as the work of Keith's right hand is on occasions extra-terrestrial (one exception is on track 32, where an effected, pressured hi-hat leaves no room for argument). Sometimes it sounds as though two completely different kick drums are being employed, one soft and one hard, amplifying the feel in a manner similar to that achievable by mixing 808 and 909 kicks.
Tracks 51 to 61 constitute more loops as before, but as soon as track 62 hits the speakers you know something special has happened. And checking the sleeve, you see that you have reached the Drumscapes -- two large arhythmic atmospheres featuring cymbal, tympani, tom and gong rolls, trills and echoes. These are rather special, though minutely marred by a bit of audible system noise on tails, presumably due to using high-gain mics set for a wide dynamic range and/or compression.
Moving on, the loops become more idiosyncratic, with all-out soloing, gated patterns, and queer drum/percussion loops, until we reach track 78, the first of five 'Hit' tracks. Included are scratches, live drum fills and hits, and 'Misc. Hits and FX'. The 'Scratches' are actually rhythmically composed into patterns rather than being just ornaments, and the cymbal hits have big hissy tails, reflecting high compression ratios. The effects are definitely not cosy -- we're talking deranged. And that's the lot, apart from a test tone, which thankfully doesn't come in until after a decent interval of silence, giving you plenty of time to mute the speakers or stop the CD.
I noticed only one of the ultra-fast 'driller' fills that used to be one of the Tackhead hallmarks. As jungle has adopted that particular trick, and done it to death, Keith has quietly dropped it.
Conclusion: As well as being his third sample CD, this is Keith's first without input from Lee Groves, AMG's samplemeister. As a result, Fresh Killed Meat is the most focused (or, if you want the other way of looking at it, least multi-dimensional) release so far. It's many things, potentially: a source of remix inspiration, the basis of original tracks in their own right, or a complete waste of your time, but what it definitely isn't is another safe sample CD. Personally, I'd have liked more separate electro elements to play around with, in addition to the techno/live composites. But Keith Le Blanc is no ordinary drummer, and he's not going to come quietly. If you want him in your band, he's gonna have a big say in how the music shapes up, no question. On the other hand, flash though he is, he still leaves space for you to work with. I guess it's all down to whether you can keep up with him. Wilf Smarties
£ £59.95 including VAT and UK p&p.
A Time and Space, Owlsfoot Business Centre, Sticklepath, near Okehampton, Devon EX20 2PA.
T 01837 841100.
F 01837 840080.
STAR SPICE GIRLS
•••••ELIZABETH DAVID
••••DELIA SMITH
•••FANNY CRADDOCK
••MRS BEETON
•JILLY GOOLDEN
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