Discovery is the project of Rostam Batmanglij and Wes
Miles, friends who began together in the summer of
2005. One year later they had committed themselves to their
respective bands, Vampire Weekend and Ra Ra Riot, but nonetheless
continued to record together when they both found themselves in
the same city.
The project is many things: it's partly an attempt to realize
Wes's concept of a band where everyone plays synthesizers, and of
Rostam's concept for an album where handclaps keep the backbeat
instead of snares drums. It's an embrace and also a commentary on
the pop music of the past decade, of booming 808 bass and jittery
sixteenth note high-hats; Elements of European electronic dance
music skittering in double-time over steady R&B.
If soul music is secularized, sexualized gospel, Discovery is an
attempt to see if soul music can survive being plasticized,
roboticized, quantized, chopped, and finally, screwed. The album
features Rostam and Wes each singing half the songs and guest
vocals from Vampire Weekend's Ezra Koenig (on `Carby') and Dirty
Projectors' Angel Deradoorian (`I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend')
BBC Review
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On LP ( a great name for an album) Vampire Weekend
keyboardist Rostam Batmanglij and Ra Ra Riot singer Wes Miles
have teamed up to produce a predictably urbane but unexpectedly
electro record. It may not be the most anticipated album of the
year, but this New York state indie collaboration is surely the
coolest.
Too often side projects wilt pitifully under the glare of fan
pressure but this project has a head start on two prescient
counts. Most poignantly, there is a fantastic cover of The
Jackson 5's I Want You Back, recorded way before their most
famous member died. This version has an industrial electro throb
reminiscent of Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak album and
featherlight synth flourishes to accompany Miles' take on the
familiar vocal.
Use of Auto-Tune is also a hot topic and one that Discovery
tackle head-on across the album. Jay-Z may have removed all trace
of the audio processor from his forthcoming The Blueprint 3 and
recorded a track entitled DOA (Death Of Auto-Tune) but these
fellow NYC residents certainly haven't.
Can You Discover? a slowed-down reversion of Ra Ra Riots Can You
Tell?, combines the familiar vocal effect with a minimal beat
with jaunty, pulsing synths. It's the soundtrack to Akon and Lil
Wayne pretending to be pirates at the yacht club.
I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend is even odder. Dirty Projectors' singer
Angel Deradoorian and Miles croon like Nelly Furtado and a
simpering lovelorn fool over Timbaland beats and Aphex Twin avant
P-funk noise.
Vampire Weekend frontman Ezra Koenig turns up for his own bout of
Auto-Tune and distressed drum machine fun on Carby, a track which
best sums up the album.
It's fun, odd, full of great melodies, slightly euphoric,
brilliantly, if strangely, produced and as pleasingly different
as Steve Mason of The Beta Band's Black Affair project from 2008.
Both albums were the work of talented men keen to show they could
unleash engaging electro on their fans, but where Mason made a
eerie stomp into the dark, Discover delight with iridescent
summer cheer. --Lou Thomas
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