Search - Balance Man :: Well Balanced Meal

A Beautiful Mesh of Genres. Well worth this price

maxheaddrone | Charlotte, N.C. United States | 06/25/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This album is so impossible to find and to classify!!
I picked up 'Well Balanced Meal' at a local store in late 2000 in the Hip-Hop section. I had never heard of it, but repeatedly spotted it and bought it on a hunch, because it looked good.(a cool schematic Triple-beam illustration with a turntable for the tray on the disc itself, too.)
What a pleasant surprise! This album takes me so many places, reminding me of different things I've listened to in the past:
-(Negativland)-analog bleeps, crackly samples, squirting bass.
-(The Orb/Brian Eno)-low dub-bass, droned out beats, lush vibes, bells and flutes.
-(Amon Tobin/Luke Vibert)-Eastern-influence samples, funky horn-guitar breakdowns,quirky horn solos.
You get live drums, drum machines, vibraphones,drops-breaks cuts-zone-outs-fade-ins. There's happy parts(Cat Wife),epic parts(Astronomical Gumdrop),spooky parts(Answermemachine);its a full fledged journey.A Well Ballanced Meal indeed.
There's almost a low-fi Fila Brazillia feel to it. Great from beginning to end. I was truly expecting a short 6-8 song EP by some underground M.C./D.J. from the Left-Hand side, but what I got is just as dope.(There is one rhyme, kinda jazzy 'Paul's Botique' meets Antipop Consortium.)
Buy this album now before its all gone! IT IS OOP!"