CD Review of Small-Time Machine by Cassettes Won’t Listen
Recommended if you like
Tapes ’n Tapes, Wolf Parade, Figurines
Label
self-released
Cassettes Won’t Listen:
Small-Time Machine

Reviewed by Jeff Giles

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T
ime was, a synth-loving home studio nerd had to have some sort of goofy shtick to get himself noticed – like makeup, maybe, or a fake British accent – but thanks to the thirst for bleeding-edge pop that fuels the blogosphere, all that’s changed. As long as he can warm up the ears of the right writers, anybody with a working e-mail address can become a 21st century pop god. Just ask Jason Drake, a.k.a. Cassettes Won’t Listen.

Drake’s been building a steady online buzz for some time now; his first release, 2005’s digital-only Nobody’s Moving EP, helped kick off a busy career behind the boards – where he’s remixed tracks for El-P, Morcheeba, and Dr. Octagon, among others – while establishing Cassettes Won’t Listen as a reliable source of melody for guitar-fearing pop fans everywhere. After two more digital EPs (2006’s The Quiet Trail and last year’s free covers collection One Alternative, which features blippy takes on Blind Melon’s “Change” and Pavement’s “Cut Your Hair,” among others), Drake apparently decided it wouldn’t be a bad idea to sell a few pieces of plastic to his fans, and opted to make the jump to CDs for Small-Time Machine.

Different format, same aesthetic – not that there’s anything wrong with that. Small-Time Machine’s press kit describes the album as “the next chapter in the career of one of the true new voices of the 21st century,” which is a lot of hooey – Drake is essentially Howard Jones for the new millennium – but that’s perfectly fine; there wasn’t anything wrong with Jones 20 years ago, and, as it turns out, there’s nothing wrong with a younger, scruffier spin on his sound. And fine, so the comparison isn’t a perfect fit – Drake may be too fond of claustrophobic sonics to ever write a naked sop to radio like “No One Is to Blame” – but you get the idea.

The thing is, machine-driven one-man-band records have always tended to suffer from a distinct lack of soul – hell, guys like Gary Numan depended on it – but Drake has a terrific knack for leaving just enough dirt under his Pro Tooled fingernails to keep things interesting. Sure, cuts like “Metronome” might conjure the sort of sweaty binary vistas you’d expect from a record like this – but for every one of those, Drake serves up a gently bursting pop gem like “Freeze and Explode,” or a thing of fragile, pulse-quickening beauty like “The Finish Line.”

There are only seven songs here, which is a bit of a letdown – but then again, all of them are good songs, which is why Small-Time Machine is still well worth your hard-earned $10. Buy it now – and keep the receipt, so you can wave it in front of your favorite hipster’s face a few months from now, when the Cassettes Won’t Listen bandwagon is full to bursting.

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