Let’s pretend I’m a novice. I’m a dilettante. No aficionado. No connoisseur. I haven’t ever written for TMT. I’ve never been to Germany. I don’t dance. I don’t go to clubs. When I hear anything electronic, I call it techno. I characterize techno as mid-to-late-‘90s, parachute pants, pacifiers, neon, and ecstasy pills. Let’s pretend all this is true.
Groucho Running is slapped together. It is bouncy beats and bass kicks that I can imitate with the back of my throat. Vocal samples, from film or otherwise, are layered on top of the beats. It’s thrown together — a simple “put this here, put that there” method of production. Can I dance to it? Maybe someone — not me, though. I don’t dance. Candie Hank doesn’t make me want to get down, get up, or get around. Makes me want to get gone. Gone far away from the useless pounding, the thin layers of sound, the elementary melodies, and the generic use of samples. The samples are corny. The synths are cheesy.
Let’s not pretend anymore. I’m no expert, but I’m somewhat educated in music criticism. I write for TMT — roughly an album a week. I’m no snob, but I’m also not a pushover. This is real — no pretending. The pretend commentary in the previous paragraph is accurate. It’s fake, but turns out also to be real. I don’t use words like “corny” and “cheesy,” but in this case — in Candie Hank’s case — I’m up to my neck in kernels and Monterey Jack. (Quips like the corn/cheese joke in the previous sentence will give the reader the same feeling I had listening to Groucho Running.) Let’s pretend I never heard this album.
More about: Candie Hank
