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Album Review

Discovery
LP XL Recordings

Article written by Ged M - Jul 21, 2009

Discovery: LP

This is the sort of album that should come out as a bonus disc; it’s a collaboration by Rostam Batmanglij (Vampire Weekend) and Wes Miles (Ra Ra Riot) of 80s synth-pop, full of synths, synth-drums and, of course, the dreaded vocoder. It's quite inoffensive, technically proficient, but has little soul and therefore doesn't stand up on its own. If it were an exam paper (as it might have been) it would get a B for effort with the comment that it needs to make some sort of original statement. A couple of tracks here emulate Empire of the Sun, some are plastic Prince, and there's a fairly pointless electro reworking of Ra Ra Riot's own 'Can You Tell' ('Can You Discover?’) while Angel Deradoorian's voice on ‘I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend’ is so distinctive it makes them sound like a Dirty Projectors covers band. The most serious synth-sin is the electronic version of 'I Want You Back', but even that would only have Jacko slowly rotating in his pit in disappointment. This would have been an alright diversion had it come out as part of a package but released on its own, and expecting people to pay for it, cruelly highlights its insubstantial nature.

Links:
http://www.xlrecordings.com/discovery
http://www.myspace.com/discoverdiscovery

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