Automato – Coup De Grace
This album makes me feel funny.
I think that you, dear hearts, should know this before we go any further”¦and for clarity’s sake I should also point out that it’s not a bad record, but I would be just as hesitant to call it good. I think that it’s very interesting, but I wouldn’t run around shoving it into my friends’ faces either. The problem, I believe, is that it’s interesting, but not for the reasons that the band wants it to be”¦
As far as hip-hop goes, Coup de Grace is definitely a sonic departure. These beats sound like nothing that’s being rapped over anywhere. They’re hyper, chunky, and quirky as all get-out. It sounds like the work of a stir crazy producer, locked in a studio with an MPC and the entire Brian Eno catalogue. Under normal circumstances the unflinchingly anti-hip-hop sampling would have already won my admiration, but the resulting tracks aren’t exceptional enough to place the recording aside from the sea of mediocrity that has become underground hip-hop. It genuinely means well, but if its true aspirations are to create a new sonic landscape for the MC then it falls short, even if it does so gracefully.
In defense of the production, I am admittedly using my most scrutinizing ear (the left one?) to judge the quality of the tracks. And at first listen I wasn’t being so judgmental and found myself bobbing my head, comforted by how much work the mystery producer was putting in on the drum machine. I mean homey was losing his mind on the programming. I actually figured at the time that the producer and the emcee were the same individual, which lent him a bit of leverage on both sides of the board. Now when I look back I realize that I was under this impression because the only picture in the liner notes was a shot of some dude with his artist face on, looking all tortured and the like.
Now I say was under this impression because I was later to learn a very disturbing fact about Automato”¦
It’s six different people.
It’s kinda like Fight Club in reverse, you watch the whole flick to find out that Tyler Derdin is actually a crew of identical sextuplets acting like the same person. And if you’re like me, you find yourself looking back through the picture and wondering why Team Tyler didn’t do more”¦
Apparently Automato is a live band whose members play real-life instruments but try to sound like a sampler. Now why someone would wanna go and do that just dumbfounds me. This is the same line of thinking that has created the last couple of disappointing records from the Roots. If you look back at the origins of hip-hop, you find the first generation of kids who, because of late 70’s/early 80’s budget cuts, were denied access to musical instrument training in public schools. These young people who were still connected with music but had no way to channel their creative energy through conventional means had to invent a way to make music. They invented a sound system that allowed them to manipulate their favorite records and created a way to drum with their words. Today the art of creating vocal rhythms to tracks has far outshined the rest of the hip-hop arts in terms of pop-culture, so many make the mistake of thinking that the intricacies and complexities of the music itself are to be forgotten about for the sake of the lyrics.
Wrong.
The inventers and true innovators of the hip-hop sound did their absolute best to apply the same discipline and creativity to so-called “soulless” drum machines and samplers because that’s all they had. So I’ve never understood why anybody fortunate enough to receive musical training would try to emulate the sound of music played by those who would have loved to had that training. It pisses me off that people think that you need to be musically handicapped to make “good” hip-hop. Like hip-hop isn’t good enough for chord progressions and melodies.
However I may feel about their philosophy aside, the resulting sound of the album isn’t bad. There is however, much room for improvement. I’m willing to wager that if the band’s members chose to utilize some of their theory training in the creation of the tracks, it could create a sound more unique and powerful. As it stands, the production is far too plain to have been crafted by musicians.
How about the lyrics, you ask? Hmmmm”¦.let’s go over our rubric”¦.
rhythm?..enjoyable.
cadence?….satisfactory.
content?….well? This is where we run into trouble. The problem here is that our protagonist (MC Jesse Levine) spends a lot of time trying to be profound, but a few tracks into the album you start to detect that this profundity may be a bit contrived. He drops almost-jewels like:
“I don’t wanna die, I just wanna live”
“You don’t appreciate people until they die, then you wonder why you never smiled when they were alive”
Or
“I’m not a democrat or a republican, man/ they both the same like the twins on the doublemint ad”
Well actually I kinda liked that last one, and in his defense, his cadence oftentimes makes up for his forced content. So I may be Michael Moore-ing him a buy by taking these quotes out of context. But these are the lyrics that jump out at you with repeated listens. They sound like the ones that he wanted you to feel.
Once again, he’s not bad, but there’s definitely room for improvement. I also think that the band could benefit from having a “B” emcee to break up the monotony. A Phife to his Q-tip, or a Vinne to his Treach. As it stands now, many of the songs blend together, having no way to distinguish themselves from one another.
He does have his moments, on a few tracks he seems to shine brighter by throwing depth to the wind and letting the rhythm of his words craft the rhymes:
“¦
..okay I put that quote up there because I was gone give some examples of his shiny moments to balance the not-so-shiny ones, but as I review the lyrics that I like, I realize that out of context, they would read just as ridiculous as the quotes from earlier. May be more ridiculous since the ones I like don’t have any overt meaning.
Overall, I’d say listen to it. If not for any reason but to form your own opinion about it. It’s equal parts something old and something new, and while I would have preferred more of the latter, I can’t say that the result isn’t worth an hour of your time.
