| Subject: okay, i'm confused. i know JC does FOG but looking at the first review, he also did Somnabulist? damn, i can't wait for payday!:( btw, thanks for the many reviews!!! |
Author:
chrystynne
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Date Posted: 06:27:17 08/13/03 Wed
In reply to:
Cari
's message, "Ask and ye shall receive! Here you go--->" on 02:34:42 08/12/03 Tue
>
rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.billboard.com/bb/reviews/album_article
>_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1952923">Billboard
>
>BT
>Album Title: Emotional Technology
>Producer(s): BT
>Genre: DANCE/ELECTRONIC
>Label/Catalog Number: Nettwerk America 30344
>Release Date: Aug. 5
>Source: Billboard Magazine
>Originally Reviewed: August 16, 2003
>
>
>Building on the success of his "Movement in Still
>Life" album and high-profile gig as producer of 'N
>Sync's "Pop" single, BT (aka Brian Transeau) smartly
>continues to expand the notion of what a dance/
>electronic artist can create. On this, his fourth
>proper artist/studio recording, BT gives equal time to
>thick beats, spacey trance, classical arrangements and
>sincere melodic pop. While BT's vocals are spotlighted
>throughout, he does share the microphone with 'N
>Sync's JC Chasez on the hypnotic lead track "Simply
>Being Loved (Somnambulist)," and it is truly one of
>the album's high points. Chasez is one of many
>well-cast guests on the disc, which also includes
>actress Rose McGowan and Scott McCloud (sharing vocals
>on the funky, guitar-heavy "Superfabulous") and Guru
>on "Knowledge of Self."—KC
>----------
>
rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.rollingstone.com/news/newsarticle.asp?
>nid=18473">Rolling Stone
>
>BT Emotional Technology (Nettwerk)
>
>If anything defines where BT is at on his fourth
>artist album, it is the self-sung lyric in "Dark Heart
>Dawning," that goes "though I came up in it/I'm not
>defined by it." The gospel-tinged ballad can be read
>as BT's swan song to trance. Instead, he's attempting
>to build heartily on what he introduced on 2000's
>Movement in Still Life -- bringing a real,
>radio-friendly pop element to electronic-based tunes
>he hopes will cross over. "Force of Gravity,"
>featuring 'N Sync's JC Chasez's heavily filtered
>vocals, follows the same formula as the hit "Don't
>Give Up" by British artist Chicane with Bryan Adams.
>Later Rose McGowan, Scott McCloud (Girls Against Boys)
>and BT sing on "Superfabulousness," funked-up,
>industrial-tinged, pop fodder, and likely a hit single
>in the making. BT is clearly ambitious -- and ET will
>help him achieve his lofty goals. (JOLIE LASH)
>-----------
>URB
>review - In flash, but a worthwhile read
>----------
>
rel=nofollow target=_blank >href="http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=162&Issu
>eNum=9">LA City Beat - article/review:
>
>Engineering 'Emotional Technology'
>
>by Dennis Romero
>
>BT is lost in his little silver PowerBook, launching a
>sequencing program called Ableton Live that will allow
>him to perform pretty much his whole new album using
>just his laptop. He begins to demonstrate his own
>proprietary “stutter edit” plug-in program, which he
>co-wrote specially for his new CD, Emotional
>Technology. It makes a vocal snippet bounce like a
>ping-pong ball on its way to rest. “Fucking amazing,”
>he says, sitting on a vanilla-colored couch in his
>panoramic Los Feliz home studio. “This is way, way
>cool.”
>No one is more enthusiastic about Emotional
>Technology, released this week, than the man born
>Brian Transeau himself. At home with his Boston
>terrier Tootsie and his pug Presley, overlooking
>Griffith Park and gazing at an array of dream gear –
>two Mac G4s, flat-screen monitors, three racks of
>processors and effects – the 32-year-old is like a kid
>in a candy store. He explains how he’ll control the
>stutter edits by using an infrared beam that will
>respond to his body movements.
>
>“I’m going to sing into the laptop and with my hands
>go like this” – he karate-chops the air – “and be able
>to stutter-edit the music live.”
>
>The album is just as ambitious as BT’s worldwide tour,
>set to begin in October. It’s a showcase of
>out-of-this-world production techniques that should
>make the world’s top pop studio artisans – Timbaland,
>the Neptunes, et al. – take notes. The razzle-dazzle
>array of nu-skool break-beats (“Knowledge of Self”),
>lush trance lullabies (“Force of Gravity”), and sassy
>pop-rock (“Superfabulous”) features celebrity voices –
>rapper Guru of Gangstarr, singer JC Chasez of ’N Sync,
>and actress Rose McGowan of television’s Charmed,
>respectively. But the biggest star of the CD is BT,
>who finds his voice somewhere deep down on the
>optimistic “Somnambulist,” and on the digital,
>throwback-to-hair-band ballad “Dark Heart Dawning.”
>The collection reaches for the heavens like a
>progressive-rock opus, but it retains focus and soul
>even as it showboats with layers upon layers of
>digital sound editing, amazing effects, and punchy
>stops. After working the studio with ’N Sync and
>Britney Spears, perhaps Transeau wanted to make the
>statement that he can create the hits on his own.
>Following a decade-long career of pushing forward new
>dance-floor genres (“epic” house, progressive, trance,
>nu-skool breaks), BT is leaving it all behind to
>become a pop star. Few, if any, of Emotional
>Technology’s album edits will appeal to underground
>DJs.
>“I wanted to make some really personal music and
>showcase how diverse my influences are,” he says. “The
>intention was to up the bar on a production level,
>too. There are a couple songs that are melodically
>simple, but the production is sophisticated.
>
>“I don’t have a problem with pop music,” he continues.
>“I want people to hear what I do.”
>
>Like crabs in a bucket, some dance critics are griping
>about Emotional Technology’s mainstream aspirations.
>Despite the clawing, the record is already crossing
>over, with “Somnambulist” debuting in the Top 40 of
>Billboard’s singles chart. The single has also
>received airplay on pop station KIIS-FM (102.7) and
>alt-rock station KROQ-FM (106.7). “We’ve been banging
>‘Somnambulist,’” says DJ “Swedish” Egil Aalvik of
>grooveradio.com and Sirius satellite radio. “We’ve
>been playing five tracks off the album. They’re all
>awesome songs.”
>
>BT, whose last album was released in 2000, describes
>spending hours and hours fine-tuning bits and pieces
>of each track on his Mac G4 just to get the right
>sound for Emotional Technology. He says he started
>with a song in his head – often just a melody – and
>composed around it, frequently with a virtual,
>MIDI-controlled synth. “While I’m walking or driving,
>a melody or a lyric comes to me and repeats itself,”
>he says. “I sing it into my cell-phone voicemail or a
>ghetto tape deck I keep in my car. I never just
>program beats to write songs. The production process
>always starts with a completed idea for doing a song.”
>It sounds a bit advanced for a dance artist, but, then
>again, BT has always been a prodigy, having started
>playing piano at age two, learning classical licks at
>13, and ultimately attending Boston’s Berklee College
>of Music, only to drop out to chase his California
>dreams. These days, his production schedule is so
>intense – he’s scoring the soundtrack to the
>forthcoming Charlize Theron film Monster – he’s hired
>a full-time assistant and an intern to help with the
>more mundane duties. The two young men slice and dice
>sounds from a downstairs office in BT’s home studio,
>sending strange loops and phrases resonating through
>the modern box of a home (which has corrugated metal
>siding). “This sound editing is really extensive,”
>says assistant Mike DiMattia as he sits in front of a
>Mac.
>
>BT is proud of the extra work put into every note on
>the new album, too.
>
>“Every single 64th note has been intently combed
>through, sometimes 50 or 100 times,” he says. “There’s
>a lot of attention to detail.
>
>“Music based on technology should be the most
>cutting-edge music there,” he continues. “Everybody in
>the dance scene is trapped under their own little
>rock, scared to do something. The people stepping out
>and thinking outside the box are the ones exciting me
>right now.”
>
>Those people must include BT himself, indeed.
>----------
>From E! Online (the one I disagree most with because I
>like the whole album but I like the JC mention)
>
>BT: Emotional Technology
>Our grade: B-
>
>Artist / Band: BT
>Record Label: Nettwerk
>Release Date: August 05, 2003
>-------------------------------------------------------
>-------------------------
>Our Review:
>Brian Transeau (aka BT) is used to rubbing shoulders
>with the stars. After all, he has spent the past
>decade remixing hits for everyone from Tori Amos to
>Madonna, collaborating with 'N Sync and Sting--and
>filling the world's trendy clubs with his signature
>trance grooves. Now he's flipped through his Rolodex
>and asked his high-profile pals to return the favor
>for his latest solo album. The hard work yields mixed
>results. JC Chasez helps propel first single "The
>Force of Gravity" to exciting heights, and BT's trance
>and dance tunes can still rock the clubs. But actress
>Rose McGowan's vocals only make the synthed-out '80s
>number "Superfabulous" super-tacky, and BT's attempts
>at rock 'n' roll lead to schizophrenic sloppiness.
>Seems Emotional Technology still has some bugs in it.
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