Music for Robots Vol I
Available now
Music For Robots
In an age where gas prices are steadily creeping toward three dollars per gallon and where there exists a group of twelve human beings who think Michael Jackson shouldn’t be locked up, if only because of his nose, it’s becoming increasingly clear that we should be ready for just about anything. But this? A weblog venturing off the screen and into a world where the fruits of your labor can be held in your hand and passed around among friends? It’s just too much.
But that’s exactly what the folks at the popular blog Music for Robots have done, compiling an actual CD of 19 New York and Brooklyn artists. The list of contributors runs the gamut from complete unknowns to household names (in, you know, hipster houses in Williamsburg), and from laid-back indie rock to forward-thinking hip-hop. The brilliantly named El Ten Eleven get the disc off to a rousing start with their refreshing take on instrumental rock — not terribly unlike Trans Am, but way prettier. Other standout indie-rock cuts include contributions from Haywood, the frenetic Death from Above 1979 and the National, while hip-hop is represented nicely by Daedelus. There are some electronic missteps along the way, but all in all, this disc paints an accurate picture of our city as one with so much personality and genuinely creative people that, Spin staff be damned, no single scene, movement or sound can neatly sum it up.
