The Apples In Stereo - Electronic Projects For Musicians

Rarities albums are usually only really recommended for die-hard fans of the group/artist involved, as they tend to feature songs that were left off 'proper' releases for a good reason. There are some exceptions of course, and we're pleased to say that Electronic Projects For Musicians is one of those, because there's more than enough great songs on here to make up a great record, which is testament to the quality and consistency of The Apples In Stereo. Electronic Projects takes in almost all of their non-LP songs from their whole career, dating back to 1995 debut album Fun Trick Noisemaker, with the opening two tracks coming from the Japanese version of that release. There's a few other cracking tunes that started as Japanese bonus tracks, which begs the question of why they always seem to get extra stuff from the best bands. Ah well, at least we catch up in the end, even if it takes 13 years. The Apples In Stereo specialise in the kind of offbeat melodic - and at times psychedlic - indie-rock of The Elephant 6 Recording Company, with lead singer Robert Schneider one of the founders and key figures in that whole scene. Most of the material here would happily fit on any of their albums, with only the overly-quirky novelty recordings The Apples Theme Song (a intro track for their website) and Stephen, Stephen (performed for American TV satire The Colbert Report) not really worth repeat listenings. The rest of it is a must-have for fans, and a surprisingly good introduction for newcomers.

Kraak & Smaak - Plastic People

Mark Kneppers, Oscar De Jong and Wim Plug are three Dutch producers who make up Kraak & Smaak, and they are so far more renowned for their remixing skills than anything they have come up with on their own, so can second album Plastic People change that? Well, it would take something special to get most listeners (aside from 15-year-olds and idiots) over their name, and they don't quite come up with it here, but there's enough variety in their electronica to make for an interesting listen. Recent single Squeeze Me sees them taking on Gnarls Barkley with 'rising soul singer' Ben Westbeech giving it a bit of Cee-Lo in the gospel stakes, but it would be wrong to label them as merely jumping on that bandwagon as they have plenty of other styles on display, including the dubby-bluegrass version of Man Of Constant Sorrow (yes, that song made famous by George Clooney 'singing' it in O Brother, Where Art Thou?), the Curtis Mayfield-lite Bobby And Whitney and the jazzy instrumental Cornered as well as some more straight-forward electro. If anything, the varity of sonic textures on Plastic People is as much of a weakness as it is a strength, as it makes Kraak & Smaak very hard to pin down or really enjoy across the whole record. There's enough good stuff on here to make it worthwhile, but not enough to make it memorable.