What would happen if you took a hardcore DIY Swedish trio, replaced their real life drummer with pulsating drum machines and snazzy synthesizers that oozed out layered break beats and 90’s style techo/house and then threw in a few nonsensical vocoder vocals for good measure? A Fatboy Slim meets Eiffel 65 regurgitation you might answer. Well, no not quite, but The TeddyBears first official U.S. release Soft Machine does reach for the same anthemic dance-fusion heights as the two formally mentioned late 90’s party purveyors.
Soft Machine really lets brothers Jaokim and Klas Ahlund and Patrick Arve flex their newly acquired studio muscles. And flex they most certainly do, with gyrating electric guitars, thumping keyboards, atmospheric effects, and oodles of bootie shaking bass. Lest we forget to mention the mighty eclectic beats, at times sounding like straight progressive house -techno, then changing to dancehall,then shifting to Kraut-rock and landing somewhere between hip-hop and funk. That’s a lot of different dance floors covered on one LP, wouldn’t you say?
The cameo factor also adds to the Teddy’s appeal on this effort. You have a pair of entertaining Jamaican MC’s- Mad Cobra on the hand clapping, head bobbling, dang di dang diggie dang grove of “Cobra Style” and Elephant Man making the party cry “All you party people throw your hands up” under the guitar riff fused “Are You Feeling It”
Neneh Cherry and Annie contributing their confectionary vocals to the bittersweet standout – “Yours to Keep.” Soundtrack of Our Lives frontman, Ebbot Lundberg adds his vocals to the laid back, unassuming number- ‘Riot Going On”
By far though the most successful contribution and most gratifying track on all this record is Iggy Pop on the infectious, silky synthesizer fused rock of “PunkRocker.” It is just one of those tunes that needs to be crank up all the way to do it justice. The Teddys really nailed it on this one folks, I promise. “PunkRocker” will have you yelling -“Caus I’m a punk rocker yes I am” at the top of your lungs, after just one listen.
Most though, will be stricken with a severe case of Déjà vu upon first listens to Soft Machine. Don’t worry, the oxygen is reaching your synapses, that foggy feeling your having is your brain reacting to the familiarity of the tunes. If for whatever reason you start craving Dutch beer when your first listen to “Cobra Style,” that’s because the song was part of a recent successful Heineken campaign. “Different Sound” has been used on Intel commercials and “Punkrocker” just recently used to peddle Cadillacs. |