Look at that album cover, and you might be thinking, "What the fuck?" What the fuck, indeed.
The short answer: this track is the sample source for Daft Punk's stellar "Robot Rock."
The short response: oh, how interesting. They lifted those riffs wholesale. The Daft Punk track is still pretty great, though.
The long answer: not only are Daft Punk brilliant producers with their ears permanently glued to the dancefloor, they're also extremely savvy crate-diggers who managed to unearth this gem in spite (or perhaps because) of this ridiculous album cover. It's moot that they lifted the synth riffs wholesale; had you not been informed as to the sample source, you never would have known. That's the art behind the French masks.
Nor is it right to ignore the standalone greatness of the original track here. Existing somewhere in the overlap of hair metal, the heaviest Tower of Power funk, and Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein," "Release The Beast" is a call to arms. The titular beast is the ever-elusive "funk," or "Da Funk," as Daft Punk themselves might put it, and don't you want to get up out your chair? Do it, release the beast, and thank Breakwater later for it. On the music snob tip, Breakwater was a funk band from Philly, active in the 70s, with at least eight members. That's about all I can tell you. Oh, and Wikipedia makes a point of mentioning that "'Release the Beast' features the sound of an oscillator sync patch on an analog synthesizer." Word.
No comments:
Post a Comment