The Answer Is In The Beat

People Like Us: Don’t Think Right, It’s All Twice (Cutting Hedge, 2013)

November 17, 2013 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I love how Discogs notifies me of new releases by anyone I own anything by, because it lets me know of things like this, a new People Like Us CD, on a new label, which I suspect might be self-released, but I can’t tell for sure. Too bad international shipping is more expensive than ever, this ended up costing $19. But anything PLU is worth it. This album consists of recordings made for audiovisual performances from 2006-2013. It’s probably the most straightforward A+B mashup release PLU has ever done, it seems like there’s far less glitch/shredding audio effects than previous work. The samples also seem a lot more recognizable than before. Not that there weren’t plenty of recognizable samples in her work before, but it just seems way more oldies radio this time around. Plenty of Beatles, Elvis, Carpenters, Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, Rod McKuen, Van Halen (David Lee Roth a capellas never get old), and LOTS of Velvet Underground. And also some Laurie Anderson, which sounds a little poignant coming out so close to Lou Reed’s death. There’s still some of the “irritainment” magic here, as on “I’m Dreaming”, which samples many different saccharine, maudlin versions of “White Christmas”, but cutting them off after the first two words. “Crazy” similarly chops up Willie Nelson saying “I’m crazy” with no further context supplied, along with a previous PLU staple, The Carpenters’ “(They Long To Be) Close To You”. PLU & Ergo Phizmiz’s cover of “Femme Fatale” appears, featuring the duo’s naive, Chris & Cosey-esque vocals mashed up with songs from Singing In The Rain, Mary Poppins and Bambi, as well as the original VU recording. The song titles are generally as punny as the album’s (one’s even called “Once A Pun A Time”), my favorite being the Negativland reference “Panic As Usual And Avoid Shopping”. Fun as usual, but I don’t feel like this album is quite as weird or subversive as PLU’s work usually is.