REVIEW: Lo Fidelity Allstars, How To Operate With A Blown Mind
(Skint/Columbia)
- Tim Mohr
Though the Lo Fidelity Allstars record for Skint, the hot Big Beat label that is home to Fatboy Slim, they are much like a Renegade Soundwave for today: like Renegade Soundwave, they don't fit conveniently into dance or indie. Abrasive bohemian-hop vocals layered over dense sound collages that draw from both camps.
The Allstars are very much sample-based, using sources as obvious as "Planet Rock" and old Stax and Motown songs to a variety of semi-obscure easy-listening like Lalo Schifrin and Eartha Kitt. As is popular at the moment in the UK, many nods to early-80s Electro surface on How To Operate, from antiquated drum machines to the aforementioned "Planet Rock" sample. Here and there a touch of Dub also influences the tracks.
The album opens with "Warming Up The Brain Farm" - a soup of dance elements, thicker than typical Big Beat. A vocal sample prepares you for the rest of the record: "Nothing seems that weird anymore."
"Kool Roc Bass" also uses diverse vocal snippets, then actual vocals compliments of The Wrekked Train. Like Renegade Soundwave, again, Train's vocals are sneered more than sung. Hip-hop beats, scratching, and bass synth anchor the proceedings.
Still, given the elements with which the Lo Fidelity Allstars craft their songs, How To Operate feels like an album: you can tell this was created by a band, a collective effort (of seven people, in fact) rather than an insular DJ album. More ideas are used on each track; the many ideas have been hammered into cohesive songs rather than simply strung along to beats. The Lo Fidelity Allstars seem almost like an indie version of the Prodigy; cooler, lighter, less dependant on obviously teenie ploys to propel their songs. How To Operate With A Blown Mind should broaden the appeal of sampler-based music because of the underground, even - dare I say - lo-fi, sensibility and attitude of the Allstars.
