I don't dance. I have the rhythmic sense, of, well, an out-of-shape white guy from Ohio. Which i to say, i ain't got rhythm, so dancing is an exercise in futility for me, although it might be funny for other people to watch.

And yet, i love music.

And you can't escape listening to music without hearing some dance music these days. It seems to infest Europe like some sort of plague. As if the modern barbarians seeking to destroy the old Rock Roman Empire over there are all bopping along to rave music. The Rock Roman Centurions, with their guitars, are forced to mix in more beats and blips and bloops to appease these Rave Barbarians, thus compromising The Empire. And soon.....

But i digress.

I even like some of this dance music. Underworld are pretty durn cool. I enjoy The Orb.

The genre known as Drum N Bass, on the other hand, drives me nuts.

Drum N Bass is, i will admit, the purest form of dance music. It takes out everything but the rhythm. And as i have already established, rhythm ain't my strong suit. So, in my book, Drum N Bass = Bad.

Little Lost Soul by Third Eye Foundation, is a Drum N Bass album. I don't even know enough about this kind of stuff to tell you if it is a good example of the genre. So i will have to evaluate this album a different way.

Suppose that you are an indie rock fan in America. Suppose that one of your favorite Indie Rock bands is Superchunk. Superchunk own their own label (Merge), on which they release stuff by themselves, their side projects (Portastatic), their friends (The Rock*A*teens), heros (Magnetic Fields), and stuff they just find neat (Spaceheads).

Given all of this, notice that Third Eye Foundation is on Merge Records (owned by Superchunk). Which category does 3EF fall into: friend, hero, or just plain neat?

After listening to this album several times, i am guessing some combination of "neat" and "friend". It's a slightly interesting album, but it's not that great.

Basically, my problem with it is this: the first four tracks are pretty much straight Drum N Bass (which, as i have already established, i don't get at all). So i can write off the first half of the album. Of the remaining three tracks:

1. Lost is moderately interesting. It sounds like the fusion of Moby and Massive Attack -- it's trip-hop with that style of sampled female voice, but there is a little bit more of a dance beat to it.
2. Are You Still a Cliche? has an awesome title for a song. And yet, it's completely forgettable. I can find nothing noteworthy except the name.
3. Goddamit You've Got To Be Kind is, well, very interesting. It's a swirl of keyboard drones and light beats that reminds me of Flying Saucer Attack. (Which is no surprise, since 3EF and FSA apparently both live in Bristol, England and hang out.) Very cool listening, and not really a dance song at all.

So there you go: one good track, one okay track, one i ignore, and 4 i have no idea what to think about.

None available.