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MUSIC REVIEW: When art and music collide

When music blurs the lines between art, science and electronica synth hilarity ensues, and not the good kind.
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Chameleon Project’s Funk’n’Space.

When music blurs the lines between art, science and electronica synth hilarity ensues, and not the good kind.

The Toronto-based band Chameleon Project’s release of Funk’n’Space puts out a psychedelic ’60s meets acid jazz groove with an infectious rave quality.

However, right from the first track, Milky Way, the music is subjected to a ultra-deep, pseudo-intelligent voiceover that stops just short of laughable.

The album in its entirety comes across as more of an audio art piece than a cut-and-dried musical album.

If this electronic art vibe is the end product the band was aiming for then bravo!… it managed to pull off taking itself too seriously and forcing a deeper meaning while really just putting on the hat of “Captain Obvious” perfectly.

The voiceover almost completely voids the hard dance beats, and for those looking for a more traditional listening experience it is just plain annoying.

According to Chameleon Projects website the digital album of Funk’n’Space was released almost two years ago. Similar to the album is the song Incredible Thoughts, which was the final awards number of the fictitious band Style Boyz, as seen in the 2016 film Popstar: Never Stop never Stopping. However, Style Boyz managed to spout the thoughts pulled from the deepest recesses of the human mind without the song overpowering them because it wasn’t meant to be taken seriously.

“It’s difficult to figure out what the Milky Way looks like exactly because we’re embedded inside it. If you’ve never been outside of your house you wouldn’t know what it looked like from the outside.”

Without any backstory on the band member’s choices for the direction of their music and no palpable greater message, the album the voiceovers specifically comes across as lackluster and confusing.

Perhaps in the proper atmosphere, an ethereal theatre or a pulsing warehouse, the music would better fill its niche. But hearing it in the natural daylight; it is just bizarre.

Clashing components aside, Reactor, the album’s fifth track, is an EDM treat. The effects are sharp, the timing is impeccable, and the build drives the perfect amount of anticipation before the song slips back down into a rock ballad atmosphere, with languid horns, and then back to dance with no problem or discontinuity. If only the band had stayed away from that nonsensical speaking dribble.