Monday, June 29, 2009

The Crystal Method's new method

I can still remember first listening to Vegas when it came out. Flippin' incredible it was. While not completely revolutionary, it was something completely different for me, an electronic album with some serious bite. It's hard to believe that it's over a decade old and I still find myself listening to it and enjoying it just as much as I did ten years ago.

Just last month, The Crystal Method dropped their latest album, titled Divided By Night, and what really caught my eye was the list of collaborators on it. Since their smashing debut, the duo that makes up Crystal Method, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, have gone beyond making electronic dance anthems to score a film (London), create some TV theme songs (Bones and Third Watch), get hit up by Nike to work on some running soundtrack series, auditorally appear in numerous commercials, blah blah, blah blah blah, blah.

On their latest album, they put out an all call and draw in some really talented artists from across the musical spectrum. You'll find New Order bassist Peter Hook, Matisyahu, Justin Warfield, hip hop up and comers LMFAO, Metric frontwoman Emily Haines, former Grandaddy frontman Jason Lytle, and singer / songwriter Meiko. As you might guess, such a wide talent pool results in a definitely non-Vegas album. While TCM isn't new to collaborations, the breadth of them here is certainly refreshing. You'll still find strictly electronic signature numbers here, but they're peppered amongst the line-up. Check out what is possibly the strongest cut on the album (or at least my favorite), Drown In the Now, which features your favorite Hasidic rapper, Matisyahu, by following the imeem link below (sorry, no download). Below that is a remix of one of the non-collaborator Crystal Method original tracks, Double Down Under, which you can take with you.






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1 comment:

Navneet Anand said...

love the new album. love crystal method again! kickass album.
great piece - thanks for listing out the collabs, i'd love to check out some of these newer bands.

the crystal method are all ready for today and back.