Variations On A Theme
Apologies for not having a post yesterday. It was my every intention, however my work on something special along with a lack of time prevented me from putting something up. In an effort to make it up to you, my fair readers, know that the next couple posts I'll be putting up after this one will be the "something special" I was working towards yesterday. Until then, we have this...There's a new album by Adem out today, and it's called "Takes." Unlike Adem's last two solo efforts (he also plays in the band Fridge), "Takes" is actually a collection of cover songs from material released between 1991 and 2001 by artists that have inspired or influenced Adem. Included in this are Adem's covers of songs by PJ Harvey, Yo La Tengo, Pinback, Smashing Pumpkins, Bjork, Tortoise, and The Breeders. Pretty eclectic stuff actually.
While you might expect some crazy stylistic shifts in the covers given the original versions, Adem takes those song structures and blows them up. Much like the Bonnie "Prince" Billy EP "Ask Forgiveness" from last year, which took songs from artists like Frank Sinatra and R. Kelly and made them into acoustic ballads, Adem does pretty much the same on "Takes." Yes, you can call the idea unoriginal. You can even knock it for at times seeming boring. But that's working under the notion that you had high expectations going in.
I'm always intrigued to hear how a song gets reinterpreted from an original album version, whether it's a band like Hot Chip playing their beat driven songs with a simple acoustic guitar or somebody else giving a different perspective on something older. What matters most on "Takes," I'd say, is the track selection. Adem didn't go for the most obvious choices. The artists may be familiar but the songs aren't so much. When you're talking about Smashing Pumpkins, how often does the song "Starla" get mentioned? Or when you think of Pinback, is the song "Loro" one of the first to come to mind? I think not. My point is that it's admirable he chose these songs, and I hope that people who check this record out decide to also find the originals if they're not familiar with them. I know that "Takes" inspired me to find Aphex Twin's "Richard D. James Album" from 1996, which, like most other Aphex Twin material I've heard, is excellent. And of course Adem's version is starkly different from the original.
To conclude, this album is by no means essential. It seems almost like Adem took this material on out of his own curiosity and general desire to expose these songs to a slightly wider audience. That's probably how you should approach listening to it. My hope is that you'll get some goodness out of it, if at the very least its hearing some songs you're familiar with and maybe even love done in a different way. Honestly you're probably best off picking up one of Adem's other albums, as both "Homesongs" and "Love and Other Planets" are both excellent records of original material. But for the unfamiliar and those looking for an easy way to appreciate Adem, "Takes" does the job just fine.
Adem- Loro (Pinback cover)
Adem- Laser Beam (Low cover)
Buy "Takes" from Amazon
There