Late last year BT started hosting a radio show called Laptop Symphony on Sirius/XM satellite radio. While he never really was a DJ, he gained much experience from touring live mixes of his songs, and other songs he liked. His great familiarity with his software gave him quite an advantage in learning how to fade in/out and process in real time tracks on his laptop, but the question remains: Does he have the "taste" to be a good DJ?
He recently released the album "Laptop Symphony" that compiles two CDs based on now roughly 40 one-hours shows. (Technically, this isn't his first mix release. The first is the obscure disk 3 of "Renaissance Worldwide Singapore" released in 1998, which by some fluke I actually own.)
On the first disk, the style hovers more around Dubstep and tracks with very strong bass-lines. The representative thematic tracks seem to be "Hello (Dub Mix)" by Porter Robinson and Lazy Rich, and the last track, a combination of Flying Birds for the vocals and Killbot for the bass-line. While many would consider Dubstep already passé, the first disk goes beyond the genre and explores many kinds of daring thumping basses. Quite interesting, but admittedly not to everybody's taste. Of note some of the track transitions, including the one to the last track, and quite effective and original.
On the second disk, the focus is more on vocals and tracks closer to BT's own style. It is less daring than the first disk, but contains more hits, including a new mix of BT's own Flaming June. As with the previous disk, the transitions are expertly made, and the style is quite consistent.
In conclusion, I think this is a very good mix album that gives an insight to BT's latest taste in electronic music. His forays into strong bass-lines in the first disk may be too strong of a change for listeners that expected his usual style, but it may be the encouraging indication that he is more likely to collaborate more with other artists to move beyond his signature style.
Published on June 10, 2012 at 20:42 EDT
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