One complaint often leveled at electronic music is that it is so perfect and precise. The beats are measured, something happens every four measures, and everything is perfectly synched.? Embracing the style of Le Youth, sampling and distorting an old vocal sample until it is unrecognizable, “Come to See Me,” the recent release from Block & Crown vs Troj throws a bit of a curveball.? The tech-house/future-house/nu-house (insert current de rigeur subgenre) track reworks the vocals of Brandy’s “What About Us” to sound masculine.? If that isn’t disorienting enough, the vocal placement is off, seemingly on purpose, to throw you off the game.? If you try to sing along, you can’t. This isn’t the haphazard sloppiness of an amateur producer, but an enticing, almost stimulatingly dysfunctional method of disorienting the listener.? Just when you think you’ve got the groove, it throws you off.?? A parallel would be the high fashion models who become successful due to a flaw which makes them special. In a world of precision EDM, an off the cuff track like “Come to See Me” really stands out and makes a statement.
Image courtesy of Tactical Music.