DJ Spooky that Subliminal Kid - Sound Unbound: Audio Companion; Excerpts and Allegories from the Sub Rosa Archives

Year of Release: 2008

Label: Sub Rosa

Genre: Electronica -> Experimental -> Avant-Garde

Music: 4

Sound: 4

Format Reviewed:CD

A lot of people will discount an artist when their performance name starts with 'DJ'.  Growing up on Hip Hop and Electronica I'm obviously not one of those people, but DJ Spooky has always been a little more than a regular DJ.

I didn't get into DJ Spooky until quite late when I picked up his 1998 Riddim Warfare which I quite enjoyed, being a mix of trip hop with some rappers Kool Keith and Killah Priest from Wu-Tang Clan.  Throw into the mix Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth some live guitar, drums, brass (sax and trumpet), drums, interesting vocal artists and it is quite a varied and diverse album.  Interesting but I wasn't compelled to buy his disography.

A few years pass.  The next I hear of DJ Spooky is when I'm browsing through the 2008 Melbourne International Arts Festival of all things.  Along with a DJ set, he's performing a multimedia display as DJ/VJ for a film he made in Antartica with the accompanying soundtrack, which is also his first symphonic work.  The piece is called TERRA NOVA: Sinfonia Antarctica and if you check out the video I think it gives you an idea of where he's currently at artistically.  If you drop by his website you can see that he has a lot going on beyond music.

I saw this CD on sale for $10 and  I figured I'd just buy it, as I couldn't go too wrong - famous last words, I know.

The CD comes with a large chart of the Acoustic Wave Spectrum.  When I was folding this thing out (below) I started to get a horrible feeling that this would be some sort of  inaccessible-intellectual-bourgeois recording - thankfully it's not.

Is this going to be on the test?

Released on the Sub Rosa label - specializing in the release of electronic music from it's inception - Sound Unbound is actually an audio companion to the book edited by Paul Miller aka DJ Spooky, that explores:

"the remix—how music, art, and literature have blurred the lines between what an artist can do and what a composer can"

The material is mostly drawn from the Sub Rosa archives and the resulting mix is exceptional both from a musical standpoint as well as academic.   Words can't really explain the 79 minute journey that spans 45 tracks.  For example, the album features contemporaries such as Aphex Twin, Bill Laswell, Rob Swift, Ryuichi Sakjamoto, Sonic Youth, Phillip Glass, Steve Reich but then moves to a host of long dead pioneers of electronic music most of which I don't even know.  

One of these pioneers includes John Cage, who is most famous for his composition 4'33" which is 4 minutes and 33 seconds of silence - controversial to say the least and downright crazy in 1952.  Thankfully, this piece this is not included in the selection but it does give some insight into avant-garde music movement back in the day.  Throw in some Allen Ginsberg and close with William S Burrows and Iggy Pop with Techno Animal (together) and I dare say this is the most diverse thing I've ever listened to.

Diverse.

Eclectic as the selection may be, the transition is seamless and the material is more often enjoyable than difficult;  DJ Spooky expertly mixes avant-garde, vocal samples and breaks, along with some very beautiful music.  The journey is strangely educational (moreso with the book I imagine) but I feel works as separate recording.  If you're looking to expand your horizons and buy something where you'll gain an increasing appreciation of with each listen, this is it.