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Talpa- When the somberness becomes a game


TheJoker

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Some thoughts...

 

I think the concept of "cheese" has been highly overused and nowadays describes all kinds of music. In my opinion it´s often far away from what the term originally stood for. For me the "new" Talpa album is´nt cheesy, but silly and stupid in an intelligent kind of way, if you know what I mean? (Personally I liked "The art of being non" better). What I would call cheesy would be artists like Enrique Iglesias or ABBA. In the trance scene, artists like Tiesto, Yahel and Holymen are cheesy. People that obviously have learned the trick of making music for the masses. The interresting thing about Talpa is that he obviously have the technical skills to make music for the masses, but still makes crazy music like this. He could have done another album sounding like "The art of being non", and have a new great success, but did´nt. That´s not what I call cheesy, that´s what I call innovating and creative. Calling people like Talpa, who is as far from commercial nor seeing himself (of what I know) as a big rockstar, cheesy, is in my opinion kind of either lazy or ignorant.

 

I just get REALLY tired of that expression in the Psy-scene. Probably because so many Psy-people are DEADLY afraid of being asscosiated with the expression and are so afraid of being labeled as "cheesy" that they almost crap in their pants, just to hear the word. In the really bad cases they can even be real cool, call themselves "hardcore" and start to make such uninspiring music like Kindzadza...

 

Still, if someone would point a gun to my head, saying "choose listening to cheese like Holymen or to darkpsy like Kindzadza in your headphones for the rest of your life" - I would gladly choose Holymen!

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To me, musical cheese is simply the inclusion of numerous melodies which lack depth; that is, they are catchy but you quickly grow tired of them. I think this definition is quite intuitive and makes all the examples mentioned, ABBA Holymen etc cheesy, which they should be.

 

With this definition, this album is clearly cheesy to me. Of course this is a subjective judgement in the end (maybe you dont grow tired of the melodies quickly), even though the definition might be good.

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Some thoughts...

 

I think the concept of "cheese" has been highly overused and nowadays describes all kinds of music. In my opinion it´s often far away from what the term originally stood for. For me the "new" Talpa album is´nt cheesy, but silly and stupid in an intelligent kind of way, if you know what I mean? (Personally I liked "The art of being non" better). What I would call cheesy would be artists like Enrique Iglesias or ABBA. In the trance scene, artists like Tiesto, Yahel and Holymen are cheesy. People that obviously have learned the trick of making music for the masses. The interresting thing about Talpa is that he obviously have the technical skills to make music for the masses, but still makes crazy music like this. He could have done another album sounding like "The art of being non", and have a new great success, but did´nt. That´s not what I call cheesy, that´s what I call innovating and creative. Calling people like Talpa, who is as far from commercial nor seeing himself (of what I know) as a big rockstar, cheesy, is in my opinion kind of either lazy or ignorant.

 

I just get REALLY tired of that expression in the Psy-scene. Probably because so many Psy-people are DEADLY afraid of being asscosiated with the expression and are so afraid of being labeled as "cheesy" that they almost crap in their pants, just to hear the word. In the really bad cases they can even be real cool, call themselves "hardcore" and start to make such uninspiring music like Kindzadza...

 

Still, if someone would point a gun to my head, saying "choose listening to cheese like Holymen or to darkpsy like Kindzadza in your headphones for the rest of your life" - I would gladly choose Holymen!

+10000000000 i agree with everything you said, espacially the kindzadza

talpa is not cheesy, it does sound cheesy because of the fun psy sounds, but its nothing of cheesy

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+10000000000 i agree with everything you said, espacially the kindzadza

talpa is not cheesy, it does sound cheesy because of the fun psy sounds, but its nothing of cheesy

Arguments for this? Also, if something sounds cheesy, then it is cheesy, because being cheesy is just a description of how something sounds.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Arguments for this? Also, if something sounds cheesy, then it is cheesy, because being cheesy is just a description of how something sounds.

For me, cheesy is something that has been done a 1000 times before, and also you can "feel" that there is no real motivation behind the music other than appeal to the masses. When I think cheesy as far as psytrance goes I think bands like IM, Skazi, Psycraft, Hypersonic+ a ton of other people.

 

As I said earlier, labeling this album cheesy is just beyond me. It's fun and tounge in cheek, done in a intelligent way, but nowhere near cheesy. :lol:

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Arguments for this? Also, if something sounds cheesy, then it is cheesy, because being cheesy is just a description of how something sounds.

euh not really, some sound can sound cheesy, but the music still is not cheesy

whats your argument man, because if theres sound that sound cheesy, the music is not necessarely cheesy.

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  • 4 weeks later...

No long review from my part, but I recommend this one. It's different, daring and colorful album. More suited for home listening, althou there are a few guaranteed dancefloor numbers included.

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  • 12 years later...

I really like the two tracks: Moronic Evil Rmx and I Feel Nothing.

I think he should’ve included the track Four Leaved Clover and the track "The" on this album instead of some of the other tracks. These two tracks flow perfectly in a playlist with the above mentioned highlights of this album. Which to me represent a darker hallucinatory vision. The artwork for this album is very special, I love the Tim Burtonesque dark surrealistic fantasy style. I've not been able to find out who made the artwork whoever did it, bravo!

As pointed out not all tracks on this album will grab you. But I think any album which have atleast 2 or three really good tracks are worth it. Even on Hallucinogen's Twisted and The Lone Deranger albums which I love, there are like 3 tracks per album which have that magnetic pull/replay value. I think albums should be viewed as a buffet to pick some flavors from and compose your own special dish/playlist. I rarely listen through an entire album in one sitting, and often just skip to the best tracks. :) Unless there is something really special going on, like on the Infected Mushroom Converting Vegarians albums. On which there are so many details that it demands the attention and several playthroughs to fully appreciate the albums. Talpa's style is of course very influenced by Infected Mushroom, hence the example. And in particular I think this style of Talpa was quite infuenced by the scaled back funky flavors found on the first CV album and on the B.P. Empire album. And to some degree by the dark style of Return of The Shadows. And less so by the elaborate gothic style of the Classical Mushroom album. However Talpa added his own twist to the formula, and something unique arose as a result from this. Some of the melodies are reminscent in style of those in the Infected Mushroom track Selecta from the CV Album as well. While listening to some Suomi style psy, it occured to me that Talpa might've been inspired by the funky/playful elements of that psy-genre as  well?

I would love another album in this style, the concept is great and the music fits perfectly with the artwork. And I really appreciate the scaled back nature of the production. And it's refreshing to see/hear some good conceptualized albums like this one. I also like how this album felt like some kind of reaction to the Darkpsy scene on release. It added a bit of humor while some of the other releases at the time tried hard be "evil". Almost to the point of becoming parodic in their atempt to be perceived as dark as possible. That's my interpretation of it atleast, the track title Moronic Evil might imply something like that, who knows. 

I highly recommend this album for anyone who likes the darker funky so called "Zenonesque" style of Zenon Records, and the mystic melodic timbres of some earlier Infected Mushroom. If anyone knows any more music similar to the style of this album let me know, because I've searched. And haven't found anything remotely similar yet, so that likely means that this is a very unique approach to Psytrance. Or that I need to improve my research efforts. :D 

Further recommended listening if you enjoyed this album, since it features two of Talpa's best tracks according to me, which are very similar in style to the album. And also of course check out Infected Mushroom - The Gathering, B.P.Empire and Converting Vegetarians as well. (If you haven't, which I doubt).

 

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