Commuter World

Amazon.com
Simon Begg (a.k.a. Buckfunk 3000, Bigfoot, and Cabbage Boy) creates an electro soundtrack for the suburbs of northwest London, where he once lived, on Commuter World. Begg's mad drum programming and creative samples (taken from local folk, traffic, the underground announcer, etc.) separate him from the rest of the techno crowd. The futuristic tweaks and bleeps on "Office Politics" serve to contrast the very human found sounds, and tracks like "Delays on the Met Line" are virtually spinoffs of musique concrète. Begg doesn't forget the beats on this hour-plus-long commute, but the journey itself--filled with ambient sounds, mood swings, and musical movements--is this disc's charm. --Jason Verlinde

URB
The CD takes us through a working day, commuting in from the furthest corners of London's subway ... working in offices ... and clubbing at night. Musically, it's an ingenious take on techno's flavor--it's stripped down and minimal, and a lot of it sounds like nothing you've ever heard in your life before....

Tracks:

Good Morning
Commuter World
Rush Hour Arrival
Office Polotics
R.S.I. and M.E.
Like You Just Don't Care
Journey Home
All Night Session
I Was There
24hr Garage Mission
Walk Home Through Shoe Box Estate
Post Jack Journey
Wave Station Platform 3
Delays On The Met Line
Signal Failure
Viaduct Route At Sunset
Living In Suburbia
Living In Suburbia Pt 2
So Many People, So Little Noise

Amazon.com

Simon Begg (a.k.a. Buckfunk 3000, Bigfoot, and Cabbage Boy) creates an electro soundtrack for the suburbs of northwest London, where he once lived, on Commuter World. Begg's mad drum programming and creative samples (taken from local folk, traffic, the underground announcer, etc.) separate him from the rest of the techno crowd. The futuristic tweaks and bleeps on "Office Politics" serve to contrast the very human found sounds, and tracks like "Delays on the Met Line" are virtually spinoffs of musique concrète. Begg doesn't forget the beats on this hour-plus-long commute, but the journey itself--filled with ambient sounds, mood swings, and musical movements--is this disc's charm. --Jason Verlinde

Customer Reviews:

Quite good, but Kraftwerk did this 20 years ago..........2000-07-21

I'll admit that until very recently, I hadn't heard of Si Begg. I just came across this release while trudging through the racks one day at a local record shop.

What sold me on this release was that it appeared on the "Caipirinha" label. This is the same outfit that put out the extremely good "Caipirissima-Batucada Electronica" disc of Brazilian artists. So, I figured, it's probably in the same vein. Well....

Not really. How to describe this? Well, Kraftwerk pretty much did this album about 20 years ago. However, imagine Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" or "Computer World" (note the similarity) combined with Amon Tobin, D.J. Shadow or D.J. Krush (take your pick), and a splash of Goldie. Does that help? Probably not!

What this disc is, is, a soundtrack of the inner-city. You get all the sounds of the inner-city....traffic, autos, trains, etc.--combined with, at times, rather oddly placed bleeps, blips, drum n' bass, etc. In a manner of speaking, this comes somewhat near the type of stuff U-ziq/Mu-ziq is putting out.

This release is worth having, if, for nothing else, the uniqueness of it. Sure it has strong similarities to alot of other stuff, as I've suggested, but don't take that the wrong way. It is still unique and different. It is good, and I do like it. It's just, very well suited for headphones and lying back to take it all in. It's not, smoothed-out vibes.

You'll probably enjoy this one. All in all, it is a very decent release. As a note, tt is followed extremely well by "Inner-city life" by Goldie.

Album Review: