I
was mildly amused when the two wizards behind Chromeo, Pee
Thugg and Dave 1, charged the stage with all the glitz and
glamour of a geeky hipster boy-band; 1 flush with white undershirt
as outerwear and jeans, and P. sporting a white satin suit
that Hugh Hefner would be proud to wear. As they launched
into their set, disco kick and tight melodic lines drew me
in and I began to shake my ass. This is definitely music for
moving, and the small crowd made up for their numbers with
stomp and shuffle energy. By the third song however, Pee-Thugg’s
incessant use of the talkbox began to wear thin. Frampton
famous, the talk box utilizes compression drivers to force
sounds via amplification into the mouth thru a long plastic
tube. Once the sound reaches the mouth, one can manipulate
the tone by shaping the vowels and consonants of normal speech.
The overall affect is a distortion of the original sound (say
a guitar or in Chromeo’s case keyboard) that produces
an analog-y warp difficult to replicate with digital effects.
Now that schools out, let me say one more thing about the
talk box. It’s fucking annoying!
I’m a big fan of vocal distortion
and manipulation. There are myriad digital and analog techniques
borrowed from jazz, a cappella and electronica that have made
it into the mainstream vocal range, from Rahzel’s beatbox
to Justin Timberlake’s digitized drawl. The talkbox
is a nice addition to the library of effects if used in moderation
to achieve a specific purpose, but lead singer Pee seems to
have built his entire vocal repertoire around the irritating
little machine. After three or four songs, the mind numbing
overuse detracted from the funky disco-dance groove that the
band clearly worked hard to develop. |
