Twink is out to make you think with his stinky blinks of wink-wink children's television shorts. His mission is simple: to demonstrate, once and for all, that good music can come from anywhere, whether it be the slow rip of the crotch of yer grandpa's pants or the clip-clip of a toenail clipper or the pounding of a judge's gavel.
Twink – nee Mike Langlie – doesn't use any of these found-sounds on The Broken Record, but he, along with Secret Mommy and many others, is trudging further and further into the realm of the unknown. He's like Indiana Jones, man; that's no shit (could Venetian Snares be Belloq?).
Not to sound like a broken record, but this album's tasty as a Twinkie, the so-cheesy-they're-intense drum beats acting as the golden sponge cake, the beautiful samples serving as the gooey creamy goodness just waiting to be suckled and licked off fingers. Oh, and incidentally, the great production aesthetic achieved is like that stuff that gets left on the Twinkie bedding that you can't help but scrape off like a greedy li'l ballgargler.
Okay, back to the songs themselves: all 21 of the bastards twinkle and shine like Christmas ornaments coloring a fat – but fake – tree, jingling and dancing like sleigh bells in the dead of winter. "Three Wishes" is a surprisingly sad narrative about a down-and-out woodcutter who is visited by a benevolent Tree Fairy, who grants him and his wife three wishes, to which the woodcutter remarks, "Can I smell the cheese?" for all three wishes. Shit, I woulda wished for the ultimate foursome (Me, Christina Ricci, Lei Meng, and James Carville ... er, I mean my girlfriend, or maybe a comely lass to be named later), a nerf football that acts as a boomerang, and a never-ending cheese log!
Anyhoo, "Real Indians" does its best to offend Native Americans with samples of the children's song "One Little Indian" and mouth-tapping tribal noises; "Hip Hopera" features an American standard chopped, sprinkled with mescaline, and bagged with bling beats; "Three Blind Mice" rhymes with "Feed Kind Lice" and twists a popular children's ditty into two-odd minutes of madness; and "Monkeyshines" tries to approximate a breakbeat version of "Pop Goes the Weasel," though most electronic songs don't go out of their way to include accordion solos.
And I'm spent. The Broken Record is quite the watershed, blasting out short 'n' sweet tracks until the cows come home. Slurping from an unusual teat, Twink reasons that focus, creativity, and an ingrained sense of dynamics can trump live instruments every time. This reviewer tends to believe him, though many will find his concoctions too busy and scattered. Next album: Speak 'n' Spell-core!
1. Mister Magic
2. Pussycat
3. The Great Circus Show
4. Riddle
5. Monkeyshines
6. Alphabent
7. Animal Talk
8. Boys and Girls
9. Hot Diggety
10. Hammer
11. Whose Turn Is It?
12. Three Blind Mice
13. Let Me See How You Do It
14. Choo Choo
15. Life Is But A Dream
16. Hip Hopera
17. Real Indians
18. Three Wishes
19. Yippee Skippee
20. Grandmother and the Wolf
21. The Broken Record