Bowery Electric-Vertigo (Beggars Banquet UK)
Altitude 15,000 feet. Cramped up against the plastic window in seat 11F, I become the helpless victim of an uneasy stretch of gut-wrenching turbulence. An alarming sense of fear rushes through my already nauseous body. And what the hell is that annoying clicking noise? Is that from the engine? Um... panic.
To make matters worse, the obnoxious superchunk next to me, who is not only delimiting my already finite space but also contaminating the air quality with his hideous body odor, refuses to shut up. "Excuse me," I said, putting on my headphones. Play button, push. Volume adjustment to max. How I love you, Discman.
My only exit from this warped reality happens to be Bowery Electric's sinuous "Fear of Flying." Oh, the irony of it all. As Martha Schwendener's soothing vocals and Lawrence Chandler's supple digital grooves drown me into oblivion, my inner-bitching comes to an end.
With the release of their double-CD entitled Vertigo, the Brooklyn-based Bowery Electric clearly refute the image-based hype of contemporary electronica. Featuring a complete set of mature remixes from their previous full-length releases, Beat (1996) and the duo's ambitious, eponymous debut album in 1995, the Bowery showcases an intricately atmospheric, aural circuitry bereft of techno's reverb-drenched, rev-it-up clich*s.
The surreal, Orb-esque ambience resonates in the first segment of this two-part sonic escapade. Both mixes of listener-friendly "Fear of Flying" rely heavily on Schwendener's paradoxically operatic vocals that are coquettish and limitless, but also subdued and under control. The hip-hop element is kept alive as downtempo beats consistently lunge to the forefront, while a series of old-school scratches are thrown in to disturb the lulling echo, especially nested within the Osymyso Mix of "Black Light."
Antithetical to though equally inventive as the first, Vertigo's second installment spins out a dazzling, conceptual tapestry, where bleary, Massive Attack distortions take over richly colorful samplings and perplexing rhythmic schemes; not losing touch of the futuristic sounds, Schwendener and Chandler superimpose coy yet rippling synth lines, catchy, hip hop-laced cadences and dub-inspired bass sequences with the frenzied dissonance of trip-hop.
Whimsically, the tracks veer from the lurid to the obscure in a matter of seconds. "Without Stopping" (Witchman Mix) trespasses on LTJ Bukem's territory with its rip-roaring bursts of heavy, jungle-motivated beats, as the Dunderhead Mix of "Black Light" takes multiple derivatives of a sample reminiscent of the post-short circuit R2D2.
Come to think of it, the actual meaning behind the album's title lies in its perpetual morphing; the album glides between genres with such mysterious agility that it simply reverberates through the psyche with the same eerie ingenuity of a Hitchcock classic.
It seems that the once, oh-so-revolutionary genre-bridging formula is becoming the same obnoxious superchunk-a creative commonplace-from which it attempted to flee. Though Schwendener and Chandler appropriate key elements from multiple sources, their sounds do not reflect it, at least not consciously. For that reason alone, Bowery Electric doesn't need a label slapped on them, nor do they need a jolt of the industry's idea of techno-ness; they are perfectly capable of generating their own definition of dance music, and Vertigo is an affirming two-snaps up.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.