(IDM-r) Herbie Hancock - Secrets

From Jon Drukman
Sent Mon, Apr 6th 1998, 22:48

Aran M. Parillo wrote this:
> If someone wants to review an old Herbie Hancock record (don't tempt me!)
> for IDM, that's brilliant, appreciated, and very IDM worthy.

the obvious choice would be "future shock" (or "headhunters") but i'm
gonna forgo that and pick one of my personal faves: "secrets".

first, the back cover photo - herbie with shirt off, massive 'fro,
pointy beard, walking on a beach.  ooooh, damn, i want a picture of me 
like that on one of my records some day.

second, notable guest musician: ray parker jr, guy famous for bringing 
the "ghostbusters" theme to us.

third, recorded in San Francisco, home of cool.

the music:

"Doin It" starts off with the funkiest grindy wah guitar lick you ever
heard, replete with vocodered "DOIN IT" punctuation.  eventually turns 
into full on boogie funk workout.  all it needs to be a big beat hit
is an unvarying drum loop sloppily pasted on, and a big 909 snare roll 
buildup.  add lawsuit, stir to taste.

"People Music" is a mellow arp dominated piece that sounds like
background music to an episode of Barney Miller.  today, you can hear
people like muziq doing lo-fi casiotone remakes of stuff like this.

"Spider" has this awesome synced oscillator buzz thing and some cool
chase movie soundtrack pace.

"Sansho Shima" is seriously mental jazz funk, way out of control.
Much more bebop than the rest of this album.  **FAST**  damned
awesome.

there's so much more to say about this brilliant album (one of those
"nice price" discs so you have NO EXCUSE not to own it) but my back
really hurts.

-- 
Jon Drukman                                            xxx@xxxxxxxx.xxx
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Plan: Eat right, exercise regularly, die anyway.