The Intellectos Manifesto
Various Artists
Intellectos
It’s refreshing to hear a compilation where something as intangible as loose, ragged enthusiasm and an openness to charging down new paths can be the successful uniting threads. Here we find lots of bedroom pop smushed alongside smattered beats and electronic tomfoolery, playing nice and sharing secrets. More than just clumsily smashing through genre barriers the right bits get plundered and recontextualized in varying degrees. The end result is a fascinatingly listenable comp despite – or more likely because of – all the stylistic see-sawing.
Towards one side there is a simple jangled tune from the Youth Untold, the sunshiney pop of Brideshead, the frenetic pop of the Persons, the earnest lo-fi Ted Leo – things of that nature. Towards another side lies the electronic minimalism of the Remote Viewer, the Understudy Inferior, and the dancier direction of Fingernail.
Keeping the geometry even more interesting are the various angles and sides provided by the various hybrids, from the electronics and beats over strummy pop of Steward, the ultra-cute childlike ultra-catchiness of Bug Bite, the amped-up beats, noisy yet hookish guitar and catchy vocal bits of Winterbrief’s punk/pop/electronic infectiousness, Atom & His Package’s decidedly unique and infamous approach to the one man band (doing a cover of Velvet Undergound’s “Stephanie Says” no less), the bright and shiny pop duo of Aikagi, the droney, noisy determinedness of Hello Cuca, and the bedroom drum machine and guitar of Mathlete.
Fitting that this should start with the slightly grating repetitive odd rhythms of the Guy Who Invented Fire’s “Journey.” It serves as the aural equivelant of someone checking your hat and coat of preconceived notions at the door.
Perhaps the liner notes state it best. Refer to section III of the Manifesto: “III. KILL ALL SCENESTERS – The current music community is not big enough for such bullshit. There are lots of sounds to discover. Here is a slice.”
Well said, and even better assembled.
Intellectos, 1009 Spruce St. #1F, Philadelphia, PA 19107; http://www.angelfire.com/me3/intellectos
