Weekly mp3 #103: Beem - The Famous

Submitted by jet jaguar on Tue, 04/06/2010 - 17:00

Beem promo pic showing a synthesizer made of Lego

Beem's got this up on his Bandcamp page - the whole album's pretty grand, but this is my fave. Wahey, here's a streamer: (But if you're seeing this in Facebook you probably have to go click "View Original Post" at the bottom)

 

<a href="http://beem.bandcamp.com/track/the-famous" _fcksavedurl="http://beem.bandcamp.com/track/the-famous">The Famous by Beem</a>

Afro-beat style, bumping shuffle beat with handclaps and vocalising. Jutting electric piano and 'The Message'-style synth stabs. Squelchy funk synth line. Do the smurf for what its worth. Pretty constant rhythm section, lots of switching around in the synth lines.

I have heard that Swedish producer Beem External link makes skwee, but I don't really understand what that means or how to differentiate skwee from the kind of light-hearted electro (um, as in the 80s meaning of electro - breakdance music coming from hip-hop - not as in noisy house music) that's been written since, well, the 80s. Nods towards funk and hip-hop, but also nods towards video game soundtracking and other noodling.

This is off his 2008 album, there's also a 2010 release on Bandcamp which isn't bad but the beats are less jiggy.

Really strikes me that the days where free album = sub-par album are well past.