DFI
DFI
Honeybear
Hmmm• I guess this is supposed to be “kitsch,” like it’s supposed to be really sweet because it’s an indie hipster playing metal guitars with a drum machine. I’m guessing that the main DFI person probably has lots of friends who wear black t-shirts and black rimmed glasses and tell him how cool his music is; they tell him that it’s so unique that he combines bad-‘80s style guitar riffs with a Casio keyboard sounding drumbeat. I’m sure if I was in his “crew,” I might think that this is amusing, but DFI is just a terribly boring record.
I’m sure this guy probably has a sweet live show where he exhibits all of his eccentricities and weirdness to the delight of all hipsters in the audience. To be honest, though, this type of music doesn’t translate well onto tape. If it’s supposed to be humorous, I can’t find the humor because I can’t bear witness to his “kooky genius.” The recording quality of the guitars and drum machines is average at best, but that’s probably intentional, as the poor recording quality gives him scene points with the “lo-fi” crowd.
The music itself doesn’t really make any sense in the first place. Most of the songs are instrumental, and the drumbeats are so stupid sounding (treble-laden Casio keyboard demo beats) that they ruin any chance for the songs to sound decent. I’m sure the DFI gentleman’s plan is probably just to bother the listener with the ridiculous drumbeats, but someone needs to tell him that the joke is old after the first song.
There is one song that I do actually like, and I like it quite a bit. “Crystal with a ‘K’” features a lovely, minor guitar line that sounds like a cross between middle-eastern melody and jazz. The guitar tone, too, is really warm and inviting, with some weird distorted guitar hidden underneath the nice, clean guitar on top. If the entire album was like this, I would enjoy it much more.
If the DFI gentleman is reading this, he should really think about taking his music more seriously. It appears that he actually has some songwriting ability, but this stupid stuff with playing with the drum machine is so cliché (isn’t that Atom’s shtick, anyway?).
Honeybear Records: http://www.midhaven.com/
