Mirwais:
Production (Epic)
Say what you want about her taste in men, friends, and film scripts-when it comes to selecting musical bedfellows, Madonna is aces. From John "Jellybean" Benitez to Nellee Hooper to William Orbit, Our Lady has exhibited an uncanny knack for working with session men and co-producers who complement her natural pop instincts with chic, smart, quasi-underground dance music. Mirwais, the man half-responsible for her hit Music album, is easily her best partner to date. On the six tracks that he produced for Music, he slipped groove and sex back into the Material Girl's agenda, rescuing her from the self-righteous sanctimoniousness that almost sunk Ray of Light and proving that an adult Madonna doesn't necessarily have to be dour and joyless. And now the onetime Taxi Girl member has managed a feat that none of Madonna's previous co-producing collaborators have-he's released a vibrant and viable solo album of his own.
Production, finally available in the US six months after its UK release date, is designer French techno, utterly up-to-the-moment and devoid of anonymous ooh-la-la girl vocals, retro sampling, and watery New Ageisms that frequently mar the genre. Things kick off promisingly with "Disco Science," which throws squiggly bass lines around a sample of the Breeder's "Cannonball" like New Year's confetti. Here and elsewhere, Mirwais works with a groovy early 80s dance music template, dressing up his otherwise sparse, immaculate tunes with synthetic love-no track goes by without a Vocoder or Moroder beat strolling by and waving hello, which might explain why Music is Madonna's most shamelessly disco album since her debut.
"Naïve Song," the funkiest and clubbiest song on the record, hints at just how many production tricks Mirwais has up his sleeve, and how adept he is at employing them to maximize the drama in his music. It tells the tale of an "unhappy boy" and an "unhappy girl" that haplessly cohabit a very happy (and presumably chemical-friendly) world. Mirwais peppers this slim story with everything plus the kitchen sink plus other peoples' kitchen sinks-there's a hallucinogenic, Daft Punk-ish bass, a weird, stuttering guitar, manically processed vocals, and a few well-placed DJ scratches. Instead of sounding like a sprawling mess, "Naïve Song" is ebullient and anthemic, beautifully bridging the gaps between New Wave and Prog Rock, Folk and Funk.
Good as "Naïve Song" is, "Junkie's Paradise" takes the cake as the album's wildest track, with Mirwais' highly distorted voice bellowing "We want drugs! We want to die!" over a bed of scratch beats and orchestral flourishes. It's slick, fashionable, and several millimeters over over-the-top--the audio equivalent of an anti-drug commercial directed by Stephane Sednaoui. Amazingly enough, this kind of excess suits Mirwais beautifully. In fact, he's much less convincing on tracks like "V.I. (The Last Words She Said To Me)" and "Involution," both of which pretty much find languid down-tempo grooves and stay there.
The album's emotional centerpiece, however, and the best representation of where Mirwais' talent lies, is "Paradise (Not for Me)." Also available on Music, "Paradise" features a fuzzy keyboard bridge ripped straight out of the Massive Attack songbook, one genuinely revealing lyric ("I can't remember when I was young"), half a dozen genuinely ridiculous lyrics, and Madonna crooning in French with a robotic duet partner. The whole thing sounds and goes over like a Parisian cabaret drag act-artificial and sincere, preposterous and touching. This is Mirwais' greatest gift-his ability to marry artifice and emotion, and squeeze as much of them into perverse, 5-minute disco dramas as he can. It's incredibly crafty stuff, with almost as much going on above as is going down below.
Rating: 9
--Joe Manera
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