Search - Junkie Xl :: Today

Super talent best spent on instrumentals

Electrohound | Los Angeles, CA USA | 10/16/2007

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In a recent visit to LA's Amoeba music store I picked up Junkie XL's May 2006 release Today. Listening to it on the way home I was unmoved in the same way that I was with his Radio JXL: A Broadcast from the Computer Hell Cabin. Despite some winners and rocking energy, Tom Holkenborg's pop fusions just seem too formulaic, too obvious, too much. Granted, the man who remixed Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" into a worldwide hit has made a fortune this way and clearly he's a stellar producer in the technical sense. But what's disappointing is that he's also gifted artistically, which is mostly evident with his MP3-only "radio transmissions." Still, there are two great tracks here worth special mention, "Mushroom" and "Such A Tease." These instrumentals successfully channel Holkenborg's obsession with the baroque moodiness of Disintegration-era Cure -- all strumming, underwater guitars and deep, damp bass.



It makes sense that as more techno artists engage pop formulas that they've returned to artists like The Cure and New Order for inspiration. But the current fascination with Disintegration's gothic beauty, as also heard in Jonas Bering's "Melanie," for example, creates a deeper sense that we're entering a musical period not dissimilar from the late 1980s. This has to do with generational cycles and global events perhaps. Sofia Coppola's upcoming Marie Antoinette film, which features The Cure's "Plainsong" will only strengthen this sense of deja-vu. Out of anger and the death of innocence, comes sadness and today's obsession with the past. Next, I would hope, is a genuine lust for life."