It's a Beat
[rating:5.5/10]
It most certainly is… and unfortunately to my ears, it seems to be a beat, rather than many. This techno/electro album is a bit repetitive for my tastes, but in all fairness just about all techno is a bit repetitive for my tastes.
Tunc Ak’s website, however, is another story… it’s incredible. This album is actually meant to be a multimedia experience and when experienced appropriately, it takes a whole different life. Instead of being just another techno album it becomes something an experience worth spending some time checking out. As I noted in this past month’s Monthly Mixtape post, the album site is “crazy cool”. Graphically enticing and conceptually entertaining… much more than the sum of its parts.
While the only techno album I have ever truly been into was The Prodigy’s Music for the Jilted Generation, I am not completely unfamiliar with the genre. And, as far as what I’ve heard before in the realm of computer designed dance music, this album is relatively on par with most of the better artists in that genre. There are some interesting tweaks and sounds on many tracks, although the entire album seems to come back to the first beat from the first track. Perhaps this is intentional… perhaps it is strictly due to my lack of knowledge about this musical genre… perhaps it’s because I don’t have robot ears (gotta love a Grandma’s Boy reference, right?)… but it just strikes me as repetitive.
This isn’t to say that the album doesn’t have a place in my musical repertoire. A few tracks may make it onto my “iPod Workout” playlist and one or two might make it onto the playlist of upbeat danceable music I play for my 10 month old son. The music could easily score an action packed movie, especially one that involved technology, robot, or hacking (think Transformers, Hackers, or The Matrix).
Overall, the short and sweet version of my rambling review… It’s a Beat is a solid, albeit non-standout techno album with an awesome album site.
either way, we can drive all night... 