Voodoo Child - 'Baby Monkey' (Mute)
2/5
By: Matt Tomiak
Voodoo Child, you say? Another proficient, if not startling dance record over which we must pass a critical eye? Ah, let's have a browse of the press-release then... Egads, man! 'Voodoo Child' is a pseudonym! For none other than the world's foremost folically-challenged, advert-soundtracking vegan, Moby! This could prove stirring...
And to give the man otherwise known as Mr Hall his due, 'Baby Monkey' does represent a departure from the sample-based, shimmering atmospherics of his last two gigantic albums 'Play' and '18'. Yet the movement is regressive - cripplingly, this is the kind of generic, bland dance music over which you expect someone to bellow 'Come on, make some NOOOOISEEE!!' or implore you to get those hands in the air at any moment. Oh, brother.
Though, mercifully, there are few lyrics about breaking free, flying or touching the sky that this kind of thing is wont to include; instead, there's just the air of the non-committal surrounding the whole affair - throwaway song-titles suggest as much: 'Strings', 'Gone', 'Last'... Honestly, he really doesn't seem to be trying particularly hard.
Amidst the bunch, however, granted, there are some flashes of inspiration - the funky, samba-flavoured 'Uhh Yeah' for one, lest the slinky 'Electronics' (see what we mean about those track-names?) - but as a whole it doesn't sound much like the work of one of the world's leading dance/ambient innovators.
Not a huge deal worse than anything that soundtracks Big Nights Out across the land, then, but when was that the most generous compliment you could ever pay an album?
Artists in this article: Voodoo Child
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