DoF — If more than twenty people laugh, it wasn't funny
Unfortunately he hasn’t. Not that his music is bad. It’s just that it doesn’t live up to what it claims to be: “an all-important new take on contemporary techno and electronica”. What is meant to be so new about If more than twenty people laugh, it wasn’t funny? The combination of post-aphex kinda beats and nice little melodies played on guitars and piano. Sounds yummy, innit? There is one little problem: the beats never ever fit with the melody. The two elements just never seem to want to gel and form a tight and remarkable unit. It really does sound as if you were playing simultaneously two records who should never have been played at the same time. Moreover, the beats are incredibly dull. Totally uninteresting, almost annoying.
Not everything is bad on this album. The melodic side is actually highly enjoyable. Mostly acoustic guitars and piano, not really happy sounding. That side of DoF is not far from some of those Post-rock bands who were tired of the prog/space rock side of their music and decided to return to the basics. Some of this actually reminds me of a less joyful version of Jim O’Rourke’s Eureka album. And that can’t be bad.... At times, the melodies are even close to send me in another world, gliding over miles and miles of green fields. Very pastoral... But those beats are there to spoil the whole thing.
Mixing “real”, organic instruments with idm-ish abstracts beats is a good idea (although not new). To do that, you have to master every parameter of your music. Brian Hulick’s meteorite didn’t give him as much as his label thinks. Hence the failure. My advice: if you want a mix of electronica and acoustic instruments, you’d better go for Fonica and their album Ripple, out on Tomlab.
Bear in mind that this is a first album. DoF might really get better with the time. There are enough good elements and ideas in there. But it also could get worse if ever the beats were to take even more place in the music.