Send "RJD2 " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Independence is thrilling, but after those first tentative or defiant steps towards freedom, the urge to look back and survey the situation you just left can be hard to resist. That seemingly contradictory perspective, looking both forward and backwards, was at play when Rjd2 wrote The Colossus. His fourth solo album arrives at a pivotal moment, and not just because it follows the lyrical trainwreck and one man-band overreach of The Third Hand. The producer is now more than a successful yet hungry talent; he's the boss, head of the new RJ's Electrical Connections imprint. Taken in tandem with the recent release of the vinyl-only career retrospective 2002-2010, it's unsurprising he's in a reflective mood.The Colossus, as its name implies, strives for scale, but also strains a bit under a heavy burden. While Rjd2 excels at sonic collages, the mixed motives on this album-- a current spin on past techniques, a synthesis of old songs and a turn toward the future-- are difficult to balance. After years spent mastering instruments and recording techniques, he still finds a new way to overachieve, adding his own passable, if sometimes bland, live drumming to five tracks. But, as if admitting his DIY ethos and perfectionist tendencies on Third Hand went too far, he brought in a team of guest vocalists and instrumentalists to augment his own performances. Interlude "Salud", featuring a goofy British voice similar to the one on Deadringer, says as much: "I've assembled a healthy bunch of folks who are much more talented than I am." But more important to anyone put off by his unique foray into singer-songwriter territory, he rediscovers, or at least indulges in, some of the mood-setting backgrounds and rattling, rigged-to-explode instrumentals that originally made him such a vital producer. "Let There be Horns" opens the album with stretched-out, Looney Tunes strings and a vaguely Latin beat, jumping between staccato breakdowns and guitar riffs. The applause during the song's conclusion might as well be the sound of some fans breathing a collective sigh of relief on a partial return to form, since the dust-heavy samples have long been replaced with more electrified melodies....full text |
| Spin |
| The Colossus should remind everyone how talented DJ-producer Ramble John Krohn was before he crafted the award-winning Mad Men theme. It's his finest album since 2002's instrumental hip-hop classic Deadringer, balancing punchy funk ("Let There Be Horns") with soul ballads ("Games You Can Win," featuring pensive vocals from Kenna). And yes, RJ is singing again; but unlike 2007's self-indulgent The Third Hand, here he wisely picks his spots, chirping a few modest ditties. Four albums deep, he's found his comfort zone....full text |
| Residentadvisor |
| RJD2 had two songs on Deadringer, his 2002 debut, that I had on replay for pretty much a year after I first heard them. Those tracks, "Ghostwriter" and "June" wrung poignancy out of a combination of fragmented gospel vocals and cannily paired instrumentation. But unlike Moby's Play, the standouts on Deadringer were polychromatic, heavily rhythmic—an explosion of tones and texture. Burial used this vocal technique far more ingeniously than RJD2, thereby all but rendering him irrelevant. But where was RJD2 in the five years before Untrue? A: Watering down his sound into background music for MTV reality shows; making "pop experiments" much, much less adventurous than the craftiest songs on his debut; and composing the theme song for Mad Men, which might help explain why this album sounds like a collection of advertising jingles. Not only is the egregiously titled The Colossus one-dimensional, it's almost totally unemotional. It's hard to imagine these songs galvanizing, affecting or invigorating anyone. The harpsichord on "Giant Squid" is there for texture, maybe. But the beat is the same boom-bap 4/4 drum pattern that Danger Mouse already used up seven years ago. While the title "The Glow" suggests the same otherworldliness of RJD2's standout tracks, it's actually more like stale Jamiroquai. (At least they had the glow of the "Virtual Insanity" video.)...full text |
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