The Rip Off Artist
In Through The Out Door
(Tigerbeat6 Records)
Although they've released music from just about every genre now, The Rip Off Artist is classic Tigerbeat6 material. It's a bit plunderphonic, a bit old-school in terms of sound, and it has a jokester persona that definitely falls in line with work by artists like Kid 606 and others. Although he's released a whole slew of other material, In Through The Out Door is the first TB6 output for one Mr. Matt Haines, and it's a goofy little summer romp through loads of hiccuping beats.
The disc opens with the electro-bleep of "Fuzzbottom," and the track mixes in a small nugget of old blues, as well as some other cut-up vocals behind the bouncing ball beat and ping-pong electronics. "Vibrating Vegetable" moves into almost electro-pop territory, tossing a thin midi bassline over all kinds of squirrelly electronics and filtered robotic vocals that drop silly lines like, "I'm not a fruit, not a meat / I'm not something that you eat." Pretty meaningless, but probably no worse than the vapid lyrics that take up most of the major airways already.
"Bim Boom Bam" is sort of an electronic glitch hip-hop track (in Japanese), while "Thief Of Hearts" actually injects a touch of melody into the fragmented album with some washes of synth. Other than the microsound ambient of "Parp," the album doesn't veer from the course of bumping electronic wigglers too much. At 9 tracks and 36 minutes, it kind of fits in that fuzzy area between EP and full-length. Given the hyper-deconstructed pop feel of the disc, it's probably good that it doesn't go on forever, though, as a short blast works better than an overkill in that department. A goofy little disc for when you've had one too many ice-cream bars this summer.
Rating: 6.5
