Pig – Wrecked [1996; XEO Invitation]

With industrial beats, skittering synth arpeggios, bellowing baritone vocals, and fistfuls of samples, Pig’s fifth album mixes new tracks with remixes of older material, bringing them together in a fast-moving release of mocking misery. Track names like “Strength Thru Submission” run directly into more vulgar fare (e.g., “Find It Fuck It Forget It (Regret It mix)”) with middle-ground found in sexual quipping (”No One Gets Out of Her Alive”, “Silt”, “Fuck Me I’m Sick”). Thoughtful composition of the tracks leads to interesting breaks of low-mixed percussion against nasty sample selection, while more standard electric guitar loops tend to provide the body for most of the songs.

Dives into harping on a chorus for extended stretches come up a bit too frequently, but the fitting together of the vocal cadence with the rhythms surrounding them goes a long way in reducing the annoyance of that tendency, as does the insertion of female vocals as a counter-point to the growling. While the lyrics hint at erudition, they usually seem content to go with broad sweeps and buzzwords, which can be disappointing when matched against the careful arrangement of the electronic components. Despite regularly turning in impressive work in the moment-to-moment action, the album as a whole feels a somewhat aimless, with the sprinkling in of remixes not doing much to repeal that impression.

They Might Be Giants – S-E-X-X-Y [1996; Elektra]

Packing five remixes of the title track, this maxi-single opens up with the “Tee’s Freeze Mix”, which drops vocal slices from the original mix into a 4/4 house beat with some glimmering synth touch-up. “Tee’s In House Dub” follows, playing with the percussion a bit and layering in a new funky synth loop, but otherwise following the pattern of the first mix. Then “Tee’s Capella” wraps up the A-side by stripping away everything but the sampled vocals, without cutting out the stretches of silence between them.

On the B-side, “The Warren Rigg Microwave Mix” also follows the simple house route, but includes some bongo-sounding beats and techno-ish synth stabs and piano loops, with a few beat-ramps livening things up considerably more than Todd Terry’s mixes. “The Warren Rigg Instrumental” serves up the same song again, with the inconsequential vocal samples dropped. All around, it’s fairly boring, with little connection or inspiration from the base song apparent, and ends up feeling more like a contractual obligation pushed by Elektra executives than something anyone involved had actual interest in doing.

Various Artists – Very Serious Smokin’, Volume 2 [1996; Gravity]

Jungle, trip-hop, and psyhouse are the main styles of this compilation,
with the biggest names appearing on it being those of Cujo (Amon
Tobin’s first project), Tosca, and Francis Bebey.

An atmosphere of chill grooves with some clever sample play and an expansive percussive range pervades the collection, with drum’n’bass flavors evident but rarely taking control for more than a few measures.

Well-handled momentum and track positioning keeps the flow moving smoothly through the hour or so of the eleven tracks, sliding into and out of the higher energy portions without a stumble. There are a few ear-worms (with Trankilou’s “Chicago Babe” probably taking top honors in that regard), and while most of the artists included have few releases to their name, all of the picks that made it are high-quality.

Bounty Killer – Change Like the Weather [1996; Blunt Recordings]

With the clean cut on the A-side, this single rides a bass-heavy loop while the vocalists throw out their verses with high energy and loose rhythms, letting the cadence and call-outs do more work than the individual words. The instrumental version on the B-side highlights the simplicity of the main beat, but there’s enough body to its low-pitched warbled and drum accompaniment to hold up as an enjoyable slice of mid-’90s flavor.

Various Artists – Descent II [1996; Interplay Productions]

Packed on the same CD as the game’s data, the twelve tracks of this album offer a quick run through the music of Descent II, which leans into industrial metal and experimental electronic for its flavors. Brian Luzietti provides the bulk of the tunes, including the main theme, with some other obscure composers (e.g., Johann Langlie, Ron Valdez, and most of the other contributors) lending assistance here and there, while Skinny Puppy’s Kevin Ogilvie and Mark Walk turn in a couple of tracks, and an instrumental remix of Type O Negative’s “Haunted” is dropped in towards the end. For such a jumble, the music manages a surprisingly consistent mood and tone, aided by its sub-30-minute run-time, providing a clear slice of mid-’90s technolust attitude with electric guitars still ingrained.

They Might Be Giants – Factory Showroom [1996; Elektra]

On their sixth studio album, They Might Be Giants adapt the full-band set-up of their previous album, John Henry, to song-writing more in line with the subject matter of earlier LPs. Self-consciously quirky to a degree that seems a bit desperate at times (the forced retro-funk of opening track “S-E-X-X-Y”, for example), the band rambles through topics of drunkenness, their own vocal qualities, metal detectors, President Polk, and pop chart jockeying, with a layer of detachment insulating them from anything that might bite back too hard in their direction.

Instrumentally, though, the band comes off much stronger. While the keyboards are held in reserve for most of the songs, their occasional movement to the fore (e.g., “Metal Detector” and “Your Own Worst Enemy”) lead to some of the most striking moments, with other touches, like a singing saw in “James K. Polk”, hinting at the diversity of sound sources TMBG used in their earlier days. Otherwise, the arrangements feel a bit restricted by the need to use guitar, bass, and drums in all the songs, inhibiting the more creative deployments that might have been possible with more selective usage of each. A few nimble turns of phrase here and there pick up the lyrical slack somewhat, but in general, the pacing and plodding meters make the words feel drained of spontaneity and enthusiasm. Not fully bad, but certainly indicative of the downward slide the rest of the band’s catalog would take.