Optometry

Amazon.com
Like an angry thunderstorm dissipating into still winds and humid temperatures, Optometry opens like gangbusters with free jazz and DJ squabble, and then slowly spirals into more meditative moods. Manning laptop, kalimba, and turntable, New York DJ-theorist DJ Spooky stretches and shifts the free jazz ramblings of the Matthew Shipp quartet like a sea captain navigating a treacherous ocean. Spooky is as much an improviser as Shipp and crew, adding atmospheric samples, gentle melodies, and laptop mayhem at will. Beat poetry by Carl Hancock Rux adds hip-hop edge, and Spooky still opts for pretentious song titles ("Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air"), but you definitely get the feeling that something fresh is happening here. Optometry sure ain't dance music, and it's too funky for free jazz purists, but it's just right for DJ Spooky's subliminal mind music. --Ken Micallef

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Average customer rating: Disapointing Deserves a genre of its own (and another star) Best DJ album ever!!! Warning: Mostly Jazz More great DJ Spooky:

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Tracks:

1. Ibid, desmarches, ibid
2. Ractive Switching Strategies For The Control Of Uninhibited Air
3. Variation Cybernetique: Rhythmic Pataphysic (Part 1)
4. Asphalt (Tome II)
5. Optometry
6. Sequentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation I)
7. Rosemary
8. Dementia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation II)
9. Parachutes
10. Absentia Absentia (Dialectical Triangulation III)
11. Variation Cybernetique: Rhythmic Pataphysic (Part II)
12. Periphique
13. It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, World

Amazon.com

Like an angry thunderstorm dissipating into still winds and humid temperatures, Optometry opens like gangbusters with free jazz and DJ squabble, and then slowly spirals into more meditative moods. Manning laptop, kalimba, and turntable, New York DJ-theorist DJ Spooky stretches and shifts the free jazz ramblings of the Matthew Shipp quartet like a sea captain navigating a treacherous ocean. Spooky is as much an improviser as Shipp and crew, adding atmospheric samples, gentle melodies, and laptop mayhem at will. Beat poetry by Carl Hancock Rux adds hip-hop edge, and Spooky still opts for pretentious song titles ("Reactive Switching Strategies for the Control of Uninhabited Air"), but you definitely get the feeling that something fresh is happening here. Optometry sure ain't dance music, and it's too funky for free jazz purists, but it's just right for DJ Spooky's subliminal mind music. --Ken Micallef

Customer Reviews:

Disapointing.......2005-07-19

Not that the music is bad but its a little to soft DJ Cam in most parts. If you like light jazz sort of beats then you'll really enjoy this, but as apposed to most of Spookys other beats its really on the light side. Asphalt and Parachutes are 2 tracks of special mention. The former is a nice piece of trippy hip hop while the later has a really funky groove.

Deserves a genre of its own (and another star).......2005-06-11

This is such a successful fusion of jazz, acid jazz, trip-hop, and illbient that the CD deserves a genre of its own.

The work here is such a thick soup of sound that it takes numerous repeats to savor all of the flavor. Yet, it all meshes into such a tight seamless whole that its hard to imagine that any element was ever intended to be part of anything but these finished pieces. DJ Spooky moves tracks effortlessly from free jazz piano figure intros into pulsing thick funky grooves, loose and atmospheric like his best trip-hop underneath, smoky, moody and grooving like a hot jazz club on top.

"Asphalt (Tome II)" with its beat poet throw-down, and "Optometry" with its late 70s jazz clavinet are raw, burning, funking masterpieces. Ordinarily, a track like "Asphalt" with its spoken word center piece wouldn't get many repeat listens from me, but the vocal performance is as brilliant and exciting as any of the playing or mixing supporting it. After weeks of repeat listens, I'm still not burned out on this.

As other reviewers have warned, DJ Spooky is really stretching himself on this one. It's hard to believe this is the same artist who produced "Songs of a Dead Dreamer" or "Riddim Warfare" or "The Quick and the Dead." But what a successful stretch! Paul D. Miller is one of the sharpest most creative minds in current music, and this is some of his best work. Too bad this CD will never get the attention it truly deserves.

Best DJ album ever!!!.......2003-11-11

This is a fine piece of work. DJ Spooky is tops in my book. What better way to create a master work than to hire the help of musicians like William Parker, Matt Shipp, etc...

Great, great album!

Warning: Mostly Jazz.......2003-04-18

Perhaps I'll sound terminally ignorant for this statement, but I was a bit surprised by the jazz content of this album. I expected that Spooky would use some jazz samples, but it's more Spooky as a guest on Matthew Shipp tunes.

Nothing wrong with that, it just ends up being a very heavily jazz-flavored album. If you like jazz with a touch of hip-hop, I recommend it. But those looking for normal Spooky stuff should probably check out his other albums.

More great DJ Spooky:.......2002-10-10

This is my third DJ Spooky CD (File Under Futurism, Modern Mantra, and Optometry) and I like it a lot!

File Under Futurism was garbage except for a few songs. Modern Mantra is absolutely spectacular, and I have listened to it over 20 (yes, twenty) times in that last week! This CD fits between the two. Some of the songs are great, some are just OK. The first few tracks are kinda toned down acid jazz, but after those are over, the CD starts to pick up. Some of the songs are a little too slow, but it all works together in the end. Some rap, some techno, some real imagination on the behalf of Paul D. Miller (DJ Spooky.) I would not recommend this as a first DJ Spooky CD (that job goes to Modern Mantra in IMO), but if you like DJ Spooky, this is definitely a must have!

Album Review:

1. Out of Myself [Import]
2. Palookaville [Explicit Lyrics]
3. Party Groove: Soakin Wet, Vol. 2
4. Penetrate Deeper
5. Polar Sequences [Import]
6. Premiers Symptomes [Enhanced] [EP] [Extra tracks] [Limited Edition]
7. Put 'Em High (Enhanced) [CD-single] [Enhanced] [Import]
8. Reflections [Limited Edition]
9. Rhythm of Love [Import]
10. Romantica: Great Love Songs from around the World

Album Review

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Between Happiness & Heartache [Import]

Lullaby Baby

Inside Out

Music: Deviate

If You Were There: the Best of [Import]

In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida

Immortal Soul of Al Green [Box set] [Original recording remastered]

Festival of Gregorian Chants

Guitars Over Texas

Gabinete de Curiosidades [Import]

Happy Landings and Lost Tracks

Hanapa'a

First Floor

Rachmaninov: Songs (Melodies); Tcherepnine: Songs

This Is My Time