Free Electric Guest Mondo Ep Zip
Electric Guest is a Los Angeles-based band formed in 2011.The group comprises Asa Taccone and Matthew 'Cornbread' Compton. Luke Top plays bass and Reese Richardson plays keyboards/guitar in the touring version of the band. On April 24, 2012, the band released their debut album, Mondo.They released their second album, Plural, on February 17, 2017, and their third album, Kin, on October 18, 2019. Full condensed blue highlight denotes album pick Filter Discography By Albums Singles & EPs All. Year Album Label AllMusic Rating. Find Electric Guest discography, albums and singles on AllMusic. Find Electric Guest discography, albums and singles on AllMusic. Mondo: Downtown / Downtown Music (0).
At what point does a celebration of cheesiness break the bounds of what it’s celebrating, and become something stronger, deeper and more profound? That’s an excellent question, and Electric Guest, a band from Los Angeles who have just released their debut LP Mondo, might just be the ones to answer that conundrum.
Comprising Matthew Compton, Asa Taccone (whose brother Jorma came up with the charming Saturday Night Live ditty Dick In A Box – so take from that what you will) and brothers Todd and Tory Dahlhoff, Electric Guest (featuring the one and only Danger Mouse in the producer’s chair) have created a record that celebrates – sometimes to an almost alarming degree – the catchy, upbeat and, yes, downright cheesy sounds of mid-‘70s to mid-‘80s FM adult-oriented “yacht rock”. And it is, in all truthfulness, a mighty thing indeed.
Where to start? Holes kicks the proceedings off with lo-fi keyboards, deep bass grooves and a certain MGMT-esque tongue-in-cheek sense of humour, whereas Under The Gun, with its tinkling piano, space effects and sing-song chorus bring to mind what would happen if Georgio Moroder and Hall & Oates had a love child. Awake shuffles brazenly between feel-good R&B, fuzzy disco and ‘80s synth-pop; and the epic eight-minute long Troubleman reminds me of something Kenny Loggins might have written at the peak of a fevered magic mushroom dream. It’s all quite wonderful, and the rewards of repeated listening are bountiful.
Equal parts loving tribute and calculated emulation of the glory days of FM pop, Mondo does what it says on the tin. Is it deep or profound in any way? No, not really. But hell, can you groove to it? The answer to that is an emphatic yes. For at the end of the day, Electric Guest have created a piece of work that takes all the disparate influences of hip-hop, disco, contemporary adult pop and soul and then makes the result all its own.
Highly recommended. I just cannot stop listening to this.
BY THOMAS BAILEY
Best Track: Awake
If You Like This, You’ll Like These: DANGER MOUSE, MGMT, LOGGINS AND MESSINA, HALL & OATES
In A Word: Cheese
Electric Guest, known to their mums as Asa Taccone and Matthew Compton, met and formed in Los Angeles, and there is a hint of that California soul, spirit and adventure running through the veins of Mondo, their debut album. It bustles with a light hearted optimism, fusing musical genres and influences. It only fails in that its broad pallete means when Mondo is good, it can be very good. When it fails to hit the mark however, it’s pretty average fare.
Mondo is equal parts synth pop and R&B with a bit of funk and psychedelica thrown in for good measure. The closest comparison would be Air if they were infiltrated by a jazz-funk covers band with a penchant for sugary pop. The little flurries of pure R&B moments are the highlights, especially Taccone’s vocals and the synth experimentation on some tracks. Yet despite these moments, Mondo is spoiled in parts by a mash up of cheery, bass line driven pop that tries too hard to be all things to all listeners.
Opener Awake shows off all of Electric Guest’s repertoire. It starts with a simple funky bass line driving into a chorus before breaking down into acoustic guitar, wobbly synths and a spaced out and low key last minute or so. So far, so interesting.
Disappointingly, The Bait then shows us a good example of when pop goes bland. It has a Soft Cell inspired bass line straight from the ’80s, a cheesy chorus only redeemed by Taccone’s smooth-as-syrup vocals and comes and goes in three slightly pedestrian minutes without being instantly memorable – something required in the essence of a good pop song. Likewise, Waves is a bit too chipper for its own good, racing along with high pitched vocals and more handclaps.
Yet it works when the R&B influences take over and Electric Guest keep it simple. This Heat I Hold is tinkling pianos, snare drums and handclaps under smooth vocals, while Under The Gun has Taccone in full soul man mode as various synth effects combine behind him.
Free Electric Guest Mondo Ep Zip File
Likewise, at the other end of the spectrum, Mondo has some great moments when Electric Guest slow things down. American Day Dream has a hypnotic quality, hints of producer Danger Mouse‘s influence in the dreamy backdrop whilst Control has a touch of the psychedelic about it. Amber has wonderful synth over the chorus and floats along free of the stickiness of forced pop that invades much of the album.
Free Electric Guest Mondo Ep Zippered
Mondo tells us that Electric Guest have yet to work out exactly what they are best at. On the evidence here, that is simple, unaffected R&B influenced pop, infectious without trying too hard to be, with an interesting sideline in psychedelic synths.