RF accuses Woebot's review of suffering from a "lack of musical detail" but his own analyses don't offer much in that regard.
For instance, RF mentions "Zomby’s method of hypnotically developing musical structure through the systematic expansion and contraction of metres, rhythms and pitch sequences" but there's no fine-grained treatment in the offing. It would be interesting to know precisely what is special about Zomby's use of changes in metres, rhythm, pitch; what *exactly* does the critic think is happening - spelt out in the standard musicological terminology. What does he mean by the 'systematic expansion of pitch sequences' - is this just that the arpeggios are slowed, so he moves from semi-quavers to quavers to crotchets? Does it mean that there is a chord progression motif that recurs, played at different speeds on different 'instruments'. Are sequences extended across a wider range of pitch? What does it mean?
Not to single out RF at all; vague use of purportedly clarificatory metaphor as a substitute for music theory meat is a general problem.
I know it's an arpeggiator! Lots of midi effects being used there, a scaley one too I think. One day I'd love to figure out exactly how they're all working. Didn't want my review to turn into a giant metrical-paradigmatic analysis of the whole thing tho, didn't have the time and I don't think a majority of readers would have the patience. So in answer to mixed biscuits, I was brief for the sake of an accessible review. I went into a bit more detail in loving wonky, and what's going on in Kaliko is quite similar to this new EP.
(By the way I'm all about over-wrought-saccharine-hyperbole-linguistic-self-groping. I added a subtitle to my page, 'excessive aesthetics'. Cos it's not about 'accuracy' of description (and what's that anyway?), it's about promoting thought.)
When I said 'lack of musical detail' I guess I shoulda said '
relative lack of musical detail. Woebot's review reduced Zomby to a 'trademark sound', and given the relative freshness of One Foot's territory, I think it's become clear that Zomby doesn't have a trademark sound.
And that was practically all of the musical detail that was in the review. The greatest shame was that he described 'Godzilla' as an 'untouchable masterpiece' - wow, high praise indeed - but he just doesn't explain why he calls it this. There is very little mention of the particular musical qualities of One Foot in the whole review. I'll grant you that my details were brief and unclear (sorry bout that), but at least they were there.
Instead Woebot devotes a chunky paragraph to telling us all about how ganja makes people infantile. I will type it till my fingers bleed and my keyboard explodes: Zomby's music is much much more than infantile, drug-addled nostalgia.
