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Melvins - Chicken Switch
| Pitchfork |
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Lots of Melvins releases in the past decade could be called either conceptual or gimmicky, depending on your perspective. There were the collaborations on The Crybaby with everyone from David Yow to Leif Garrett; full-album partnerships with Jello Biafra, Lustmord, and Fantômas; a staged "live" version of Houdini; and whatever the intermittently awesome Hostile Ambient Takeover was supposed to be. Interesting music at every stop, but overall an uneven track record, one that encourages doubts about any new Melvins diversion. Still, the idea behind Chicken Switch is promising. The band gave entire albums (and sometimes more) to noisy experimental artists, letting each melt, slice, and demolish the music into five-minute-or-so chunks. And the concept works, mostly because the band chose interesting remixers rather than famous ones. The only well-known names here are Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo, Matmos, and Boredoms' Eye Yamatsuka, and even Melvins fans may not recognize the other participants. But everyone involved attacks their work with vigor, precision, and an insatiable desire to test limits. And they all bring their A-games to Chicken Switch, making it less a Melvins remix record than a compilation of excellent experimental music....full text |
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| Drownedinsound |
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The Melvins have never looked likely to become actual rock stars, really, but they have associated with actual rock stars on a great many occasions in the last two decades. This has ensured a certain trickle-down element in their fanbase, consisting of curious dabblers that check them out based on the patronage of Nirvana, Tool, Mike Patton or Mastodon. Rather than leading them to think that this might provide them with an ‘in’ as regards commercial success, it seems to have increased their desire to aggravate and distress. Enraging an arena-sea of half-interested lunkheads has to beat a few hundred chinstrokers convincing themselves they ‘get’ your set of feedback scree, right? They’ve applied it to their albums, too: Lysol, their early-Nineties drone doom baffler, might now be deemed a proto-Sunn 0))) klassik, but interim releases like Prick and Colossus Of Destiny are scorned by all but the staunchest fanboys. Which camp will Chicken Switch – a 15-track remix album where each participant has been given a whole album to work from, rather than a single track – end up in? Ultimately, I’m inclined to lean towards the latter. It’s basically a noise album, all told, and not many people, even in the Melvins fan camp, like noise albums. However, there are some sturdy examples of how to make unlistenable sadism exciting herein, along with some misfires....full text |
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| Craveonline |
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OK, so, I got duped. It happens to the best of us and I’m not too proud to say it happened to me. Essentially what happened was I went to my PO Box one day to collect the promos I get each week for review for Crave. I stashed them in my bag and headed home, excited to see what I had that was kick ass and what I had that sucked. When I got home I scanned through the CDs where I stumbled upon a CDR that said simply “The Melvins”. I was amped, I love The Melvins and this looked like something new. What I was supposed to be listening to was The Melvins new remix album “Chicken Switch”, a series of songs smashed to bits and reformulated by some of the leading noise and avante guarde artists. It sounded legit, it sounded like a remix album made up of noise and feedback and a general love of cacophony. I loved it and was quick to review and fire it off to Crave. Then the bottom fell out. I woke to an email telling me I’d reviewed a faked leak, that my comments on the remixed numbers weren’t even close. The worst part was the email came from a guy who worked on The Melvins official website. Now not only did I have egg on my face for the mistake but I felt like an idiot in the shadow of a band I respected. I shot back and email apologizing for the mistake but I still felt like a fool. Whoever had sent me the fake leak made me look like a jackass in front of my editor at Crave and The Melvins. Needless to say I was pissed. ...full text |
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