Freeplay

Slabco All-Stars
Slabco 51
(Slabco, 2005)
By Erin Barnes
ebarnes4@mscd.edu

   Slabco 51 is perfect for the average Aqua Teen Hunger viewer getting high in their mom’s basement. Slabco was releasing tapes of homemade beats in the ‘90s, and with the advent the World Wide Web, they’re giving albums away for free. The newest “mpfree” is a compilation of tracks by the label’s all-stars such as Sissyteen, Land of the Loops, and Analog Cabin, most of which have full albums available on the website.
   The comp floats through hookless, chorus-less, chill Eastern interludes, head-bopping Reggae funk, and beats that are jazzy, trip-hoppy and hip-hoppy.    They lay slowed-down Quaalude-soaked snippets of conversation and little girl vocals over lo-fi miniatures, providing a sweet, but creepy, listening experience.
   The compilation features over 50 tracks, most of them fairly short. Since there are so many tracks to sift through, here, for the attention-deficit disordered, is a drive-by review of the artists worth mentioning.

Stinky Fire Engine
   Cute and ghetto, like the birthday cards you make in crayon for your Momma (years ago, of course… ahem.) It’s endearing Brit pop, with lyrics like “Trash that retro vision/ Just leave that television” sung over a cheap Casio bossa nova beat.

Sukpatch
   Veterans on the scene, Sukpatch plays with acoustic folk, surf guitar, and blues-rock with feathers of synths textured over subtle beats. There are few discernable choruses, and they tend to feature sweet female vocalists, who get younger the deeper into the CD. One song features a female vocalist who sounds like an eight-year-old girl as she sings, “I shot you full of drugs and drove you to see a movie.”

Clyde
   Speaking of little girls, this track by Clyde is an old-timey ditty straight from the nursing home, but it’s sung by a sweet young girl, with background vocals that can only be described as coming from a stoned gremlin.

Sweet Country Living
   This one-minute vignette begins with a locker room speech, only the man is amping men up to go to war armed with swords and the Bible. It launches into an inspirational, “Eye of the Tiger” cock-rock song about killing people in the name of Jesus.

True Circles in Jig Time
   Bubble-gum pop with a layer of screeching accents, which actually balance out the sweetness.

Dirt Rock City
   A super-ghetto recording of some good indie rock, with a dampened Cure-style bass line and vocals that are a little too nicey-nicey.
   This is a silly tour of unusual beats for turntablists, and it’s interesting enough to listen to on its own. Most of the tracks are acoustic folk with the slightest electronic embellishments and ghetto experimental recordings. They are the perfect thing to mix over one of those Adult Swim commercials where they say random things in black and white or play at the next little-girl-gremlin pot party down the block.

Download Slabco 51 by visiting http://www.slabco.com/ and clicking on the “mpfrees” link, then clicking the slabco 51 link at the bottom of the page

Every week, Freeplay will cover the best free albums and EPs to be found on the World Wide Web