Freeland Cope Review
UK DJ Serves Best Fish Tacos In Encinada on New Rock / Dance Record
Jun 2, 2009
When Brighton, England’s DJ Freeland set out to create his latest solo CD Cope, the follow up to his 2003 debut album Now & Them, he wanted to create a body of work that sounded more like a conceptual album rather than a bunch of beats slapped together.
“I wanted to create songs I could play live, not just spin,” he said in a statement. While Cope contains ample beats, an electro core and enough club-ready grooves to get any dance floor shaking, Freeland also added jagged guitars and real drums.
He based his arrangements around a song-writing style that’s more traditional than the average DJ set, making Cope more of a time-honoured album than a simple party compilation featuring guest vocalists.
Tommy Lee and Joey Santiago Cope with Dance Music
To flesh out the album Freeland enlisted vocalist Kurt Bauman, who now fronts the eponymous new group assembled to tour live. However, the album also includes an impressive list of guests including Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, Joey Santiago from the Pixies as well as Jerry Casale from DEVO.
With such a mixed bag of alternative rock and heavy metal guests along with classic dancefloor inspired beats, Cope may be electronica in nature but the bulk of the album assumes a style of its own and defies genre.
Cope Rocks On
“Do You!” a deep, break beat club groove kicks off the album before merging into heavy drum and guitar-based “Under Control”. Things turn trippy on the mysterious "Strange Things” as well as on the electronic experimentation of trancy “Bring It On”.
“Mancry” sounds epic and eerie in scope with a soundscape shaped by the pounding drums of Tommy Lee, while “Borderline” again switches gears and trots off to incorporate a more alternative rock sound, based around pulsating beats.
Things turn sour, however, with “Rock On” a brutal cover of David Essex’s classic from 1974. The vocal sounds lazy, while the buzzing, electronic twitters seem contrived, unnecessary and makes Michael Damien’s pop cover from 1989 sound like classic material.
Best Fish Tacos In Encinada
“Silent Speaking” brings back the noise before the set’s star truly shines on album highlight “Best Fish Tacos In Encinada”. This warm pulsating dance instrumental proves that electronica doesn’t have to be cold and icy.
“Best Fish Tacos In Encinada” may be the oddest name for a track in some time, but it’s sure to spin any club crowd into a frenzy.
Only A Fool (Can Die)
Mixing brittle vocals by DEVO’s Jerry Casale over a trancy synth, “Only A Fool (Can Die)” clashes the best of rock with paranoid dance.
As the album closes, Freeland returns to the keyboards with a pair of dark electronic numbers - the trance anthem “Morning Sun”, and the detached “Wish I Was Here”, finishing the album as he would a DJ set, with a long goodbye.
On Cope, Freeland proves that with the right ingredients, dance and rock explode in a dynamite mix. Truly one of the best dance/rock albums of summer 2009. Cope hits music outlets June 9, 2009.
Freeland recently sat down with Suite 101 to talk about Cope. Read the interview here.
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