Mux Mool - Just Saying Is All

Aliright, 2 for 2! Let's see how long I can keep this up...

Today's album: Mux Mool - Just Saying Is All (Moodgadgets 2009)
Genre: Glitch Hop, Dance, Electronic
Running time: 6 tracks, 34:57
In a nutshell: Beats and breaks that are interesting, but not too interesting

1. End Guy
2. Merlinfist!
3. Eagle Fantasies
4. B'Genius
5. 2muxLUV
6. Teal Trim

A while back I covered one of Flying Lotus's EPs, which essentially were an opportunity for the popular L.A. DJ to remix and reinvent some of his recent songs. Mux Mool is a similar sort of DJ, taking your everyday hip-hop beats and glitching them out, or gussying them up. However, the purpose of this EP seems less to deviate from styles already expressed or popularized and more to cement his reputation as a new artist on the scene.

Mux Mool's debut LP, Skulltaste, dropped earlier this year. It's amazing, you should definitely listen to it...but listen to Just Saying Is All first. While Skulltaste is a consistently good album peppered with amazing moments, Just Saying Is All is all amazing. Easy enough to pull off on a six-track EP, I know. Nevertheless, at times it seems the catchiness of Merlinfist!, or the cooler pulse of Eagle Fantasies have a little more pop value than any of the other 21 tracks on Skulltaste.

If this vein of electronic music hits the mainstream, I think it'll really take off. It's definitely great music to have on in the background at house parties, or to have on in the car while cruising between bars. I like it much better than all the cheezey, rambunctious shit they play in clubs or on the radio. You know what I'm talking about, the kind of over-commercialized music that really operates on one core principle: the more obnoxious, stupid, or ridiculous the hook the less likely you are to forget after you've heard. I call it the "morbid fascination" principle of music. People who hear it don't actually like it, nor do they think its actually cool. Rather, they take what they are given because they don't know any better, and besides, once the bass gets pounding loud enough, it doesn't really matter what the rest of the content sounds like.

The glitch-hop scene really seems to be the most viable contender to buck this painful trend. Unlike its brainier IDM and glitchcore cousins, this shit is accessible and undeniably cool. If this sounds like a bandwagon you'd like to jump on, I would suggest listening to some Machinedrum, Nosaj Thing, or Bassnectar for starters...and of course, Mux Mool and Flying Lotus.