Jettatura Squadra Fantasma Sixty One Sixty Eight brought to you by Egg Boy Computer-influenced musical composition has come a long way from the by-gone salad days of the early 80’s, a time when LCD screens flickered and primal binary programs crudely looped small snippets of sound. To quote a cigarette ad from those days, you’ve come a long way, baby. The music of Jettatura, the duo of Dave Hill Jr (Guv’nor Beats) and James Rotondi (Air), rides in a headspace where acoustic and organic instruments mate to form completely new sounds. Squadra Fantasma is the audio equivalent of the ending of Kubrick’s film AI, where the organic has evolved and morphed with the digital world, creating a completely new form of (musical) life. Luckily, jettatura succeeds far beyond the attempts of the Spielberg directed film. Smears of horns overlap drips and drops in ‘farouche,’ presenting a Morricone landscape replete with arpeggiated guitar and piano. ‘battling maxo’ builds a distorted bass riff into a flurry of darting wah guitars and tripped sound effects. All that’s missing is Bjork coo-cooing over top. Other tracks — the agro stomp and grit of ‘ghetto foot,’ the Hendrix-meets-aphex-twinism of ‘turn a blind eye’ — explore a frontier beyond techno dribble or jazz, a more tweaked out Tortoise, a cohesive version of Intelligent Dance Music. Closer ‘tight corner’ brings together the best of what jettatura has to offer, a tweaked out and sampled-up soundscape for the movie of your mind. Jettatura shakes up familiar elements and brings them back together in new and interesting ways, an audio boggle that pleases the ears as well as the soul. Squadra Fantasma is a refreshingly fluid piece of electronic work. Pros: familiar ingredients but a whole new recipe Cons: some (acceptable) GMOs Useful for: campfire philosophizing, subway commuting Metric Old World Underground, Where Are You Now? Goldfrapp Black Cherry Fleetwood Mac Say You Will DJ Dara Breakbeat Science Exercise 01 The 88 Kind of Light The Kills Black Rooster EP The Libertines Up the Bracket Jettatura Squadra Fantasma Tone Ambient Metals The Streets Original Pirate Material Grand Buffet Cigarette Beach Roni Size Touching Down Rolling Stones 40 Licks Brendan Benson Lapalco Anticon Music for the Advancement of Hip-Hop copyright © 2000-2005 - www.stellargirl.com