Search - Finitribe :: Unexpected Groovy Treat

Sample Madness

Mr. A. Pomeroy | Wiltshire, England | 05/15/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"1992 wrapped up in 40 minutes, that's 'An Unexpected Groovy Treat'. Combining a mixture of chunky beats, dozens of samples from increasingly-diverse sources ('The Name of the Rose', 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', Bugs Bunny), lyrics that are obviously about drugs, and several remixes of other songs on the album, 'An Unexpected Groovy Treat' now sounds extremely dated, which is a good thing as it will be trendy again sometime in the middle of the next decade.As with so many other albums of the time (and, indeed, ever), this is essentially one great single, a few decent b-sides, and lots of filler. The one great single is 'Forevergreen', a wonderfully sardonic dig at the 'Wired' vision of the world - an offshore tax-free utopia of glass elevators and satellite communications. Done in the spirit of 'Grossing 10K', but with a tune, it effectively combines flat, deadpan vocals with a set of gorgeous melodies. It seems to be very quiet, though - when you turn the volume up it gets hissy.The rest is much of a muchness - they refined the music and production considerably the the superior 'Sheigra' a few years later, and you are better off buying that, and hunting for 'Forevergreen' as a single. After 'Sheigra' they took a total break from smooth techo-pop and moved into 'illbient', and they seem to be on hiatus at the moment."

Sample madness

Mr. A. Pomeroy | Wiltshire, England | 06/29/2000

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Finitribe had a similar career path to their contemporary label-mates 'The Shamen', but without the pop success. Starting off as an indie guitar band, they swiftly latched onto sample-based dance music with their previous album, 'Grossing 10K'. 'AUGT' was obviously the album on which they discovered ecstacy - whilst 'G10K' was packed with social commentary, the closest 'AUGT' comes to saying something about the world is on the wonderfully sardonic 'Forevergreen', a song which simultaneously celebrates and pokes fun at a then-novel information age. Elsewhere there are lots of relatively anonymous house / dance tracks, usually packed with samples from all kinds of diverse sources (Warner Bros. cartoons, 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service', 'The Name of the Rose'), and tunes. Finitribe were also novel in that they used tunes, and lots of them. Production-wise, this sounds extremely old-fashioned, and it's not a patch on the ambient-techno of 'Sheigra', but it's an interesting portrait of poppy dance music as it was in 1990."