[acid-jazz] Thievery Corporation - The Richest Man In Babylon

From: Christina Long (christina@softartstudios.com)
Date: Wed Jun 05 2002 - 06:28:48 CEST

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    Thought some of you here may dig this sneak review by a dear friend,
    Aaron Schultz (DRM of Bastard Jazz Records) who has an advance copy of
    the new Thievery album. Release date is 9.17.02.

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    I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of the new
    Thievery Corporation album "The Richest Man in
    Babylon" from ESL today.
    I just took a listen to it, and I have to admit - I'm
    really, really impressed. Keep in mind I've only
    listened to it once, but here goes:
    On one hand, it seems like Thievery has really
    returned to their "Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi"
    roots sound. "The Mirror Conspiracy" had a lot of more
    uptempo, bossa-ish tracks, whereas this album really
    has a lot of hard hitting hip-hop breaks and dub
    basslines, bongos,congas, and tablas,  sampled +
    delayed ragga vocals or actual vocalists (Notch, from
    Born Jamericans is on it, as well as Sleepy Wonder and
    Shinehead) layered in with a lot of Middle Eastern,
    Persian, and Indian sounds ..thats the Thievery sound
    I love so much.
    There's a fair deal of quality female vocals on the
    record (most of the female vocal tracks are just
    straight downtempo joints though, with heavy drum
    breaks...)..Emiliana Torrini is on two tracks, Pamela
    Bricker (who sung on "Lebaneese Blonde") sings on two
    tracks. LouLou (sung on "Le Monde" and "Shadows of
    Ourselves") sings on one track in Farsi and another in
    French.

    This is really a refreshing album to listen to. This
    is the album Thievery should have made to follow up
    "Sounds from The Thievery Hi-Fi". Their programming
    has vastly improved and they don't seem to be reliant
    on the same loops and breaks like they have been known
    to do. The blending of unique ethnic flavors on this
    record is incredibly tasteful and smooth - I can
    honestly say that I would play 95% of these tracks out
    in a DJ set, and on top of that, 90% of the songs you
    can beatmatch into a downtempo set, which is much more
    than I can say for "The Mirror Conspiracy", which
    always found itself unused in my record crate.

    You can player hate and talk about 'commercialism' all
    you want, but there is a reason that these guys are as
    big as they are in the downtempo world - and "The
    Richest Man in Babylon" truly solidifies that.

    Here's a tracklisting and ESL's little description of
    each track.

    01 - "Heaven's Gonna Burn Our Eyes"
    While in Washington D.C., Icelandic Singer Emiliana
    Torrini met Thievery Corp. at the 18th St. Lounge.
    Based upon a late night impromptu session, Garza and
    Hilton asked Emiliana to contribute her beautiful,
    hypnotic, voice to these two tracks.

    02- "Facing East"
    Featuring Vocals by Pamela Bricker who's unmistakeable
    voice is known on the classic Thievery track "Lebanese
    Blonde"

    03- "The Outernationalist"
    Revisiting "Sounds from the Thievery Hi-Fi", this
    track draws heavily on the duos reverence for Jamaican
    music.

    04- "Interlude"
    Developed one afternoon while talking to an Afghani
    friend.

    05- "Omid (hope)"
    Features LouLou, our favorite Persian chanteuse. To
    our knowledge, this may be the only electronic music
    cut in Farsi

    06- "All That We Perceive"
    Features Pamela Bricker on vocals and some nice guitar
    work by our friend Chris Vrenios. The horns were
    played by Rick Harris.

    07-"Un Simple Histoire"
    Sung by LouLou, a slice of French prose juxtaposed
    with Persian and Indian instrumentation

    08- "Mue Destino"
    With vocals by Cape Verdian singer Patrick Dos Santos,
    this bossa nova song finds Thievery delving into
    brazillian sounds.

    09 - "Exilo"
    Discovered in Rob Garza's haunt, Rhumba Cafe, Vernie
    Verela was asked to grace the LP with an Afro-Cuban
    number. The result is this haunting track

    10 - "From Creation"
    More classic Thievery Corporation sounds ala "Sounds
    from the Thievery Hi Fi"

    11 - "The Richest Man in Babylon"
    Our Anthem, penned by Rob Garza and painstakingly
    recorded in the winter of 2001. For us, this song says
    it all. The incredible vocals by Notch, of born
    Jamericans fame.

    12- "Liberation Front"
    After many evenings listening to ESL resident Farid
    spin afrobeat records from Nigeria, we cut a
    particularly good session with horn player Rick Harris
    and guitars from Desmond Williams.

    13 - "The State of the Union"
    Sleepy Wonder and Shinehead give us the real state of
    the union address. (SIDE NOTE: this track is really
    the shit..this is like the "Assault on Babylon" style
    track of the album)

    14 - "Until the Morning"
    Icelandic soul from Emiliana Torrini

    15- "Resolution"
    This was the first song recorded for the album, and we
    always knew it would end it as well.

    There you have it :)  Just my 2cents.

    -Aaron



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