How can you tell if an album is good, very good, or in fact excellent? Having established that one likes an album as a whole and also most of the individual tunes on it, how does one define the scale of how much one likes it? By the extent to which it makes one reflect on life’s deepest questions, (like Phaeleh’s astounding ‘Fallen Light’), or the extent to which it makes one dance around like a lunatic (like various Renegade Hardware compilations), or simply just the extent to which it is precisely produced and immaculately written? These are questions that implicitly at least concern all music reviewers. And what’s more, I think I have an answer to these conundrums. For some time now, I’ve been developing what I call the ‘Aural Wallpaper Test’. And at last it is ready for its first full outing.
Let me explain. For some time now I’ve thought that the term ‘Aural Wallpaper’ describes a surprising majority of albums quite well. This term refers to albums that you like, but when you listen to them they end up blurring into the general atmosphere of wherever you are. These are albums that, usually, you fully intend to listen to again but end up instead just ‘having on’ in the background while you do something else. I can listen to an entire Aural Wallpaper album and not be able to describe a single feature of any single tune that is on that album. In most cases, you could sneakily switch the album to a different Aural Wallpaper one and I wouldn’t be any the wiser. I could, however, tell you that whatever it was, I liked it. This is simply because if I didn’t like I would have at some point turned it off through irritation and annoyance.
However, on the odd occasion there are albums you listen to that you simply cannot just ‘have on’ in the background. Albums that are so shockingly good that they demand your fullest and most intricate attention at all times. I’m thinking of albums like the aforementioned ‘Fallen Light’, where you cling on to every glimmer of every sound of every tune, searching for some sort of revelatory meaning hidden beneath the drums. I physically cannot work, read, or indeed do anything except sit in quasi-messianic awe when ‘Fallen Light’ is playing. It is an album that is so staggering that, no matter how many times I listen to it, I always end up listening to every vocal and every chord and every symbol of every song.
This brings me on to the Aural Wallpaper test, which has two stages. First, establish, through a careful and thoughtful listen through like any good reviewer will do, that you like the album. Once this is done, you must secondly put this album on again when you are doing something else; reading, working, or whatever. Then you can determine if the album is merely good, very good, or indeed excellent. If the album blends into the background ambience of the room, then it is Aural Wallpaper: good, but not exciting, amazing, or excellent. If some of the tunes grab your attention and refuse to let it go, then it can be said that some of the tunes are excellent, and that the album is therefore very good, but not perfect. If you end up tossing your book to one side and listening intently to every single track, then it may be classified as excellent in itself; 10/10; a masterpiece, and other such words. In other words, an excellent album demands your attention; it does not let your mind wander onto the weather, or what you are having for tea, or what time Death in Paradise is on. A staggeringly excellent album such as ‘Fallen Light’ will even stop your mind from wandering even when a crocodile is hungrily eying up your left leg.
Having finally perfected this masterful framework, I only needed something new to test it on. And, happily, I got the opportunity to do so not long afterwards when the new ‘Deep Intentions: Dance-floor Anthems from the Deep House Underground’ CD dropped through my letterbox. Spread across 3 CDs, This is a compilation album released by Deep Intention Events, a London based club night that have become quickly renowned for their parties at The Egg, where they have booked the likes of Alexis Raphael and Leftwing & Kody in recent months. Although one always has reason to be suspicious of albums that brand themselves as ‘deep house’ and ‘underground’ (two terms that largely have little meaning these days, and can something be an ‘anthem’ and ‘underground’ at the same time?), this features some very impressive names, such as Groove Armada, Huxley, Midland, and Gorgon City, alongside a few lesser known yet emerging artists.
In fact, and to my pleasant surprise, it’s actually some of the lesser names that catch my attention most here. The accolade of best track is probably a toss-up between Martin Ikin’s ‘Hold Dis’ and Pirupa’s more dance floor orientated ‘Party Non Stop’. I like these tunes in different ways: ‘Party Non-Stop’ features an impressive snare pattern and a series of quaint yet delightful beeps alongside a driving bassline and tidy-as-you-like 4x4 beat. There’re tribal flavours in there too, they force themselves to the fore just after the second drop, and the whole thing is put together very well. ‘Hold Dis’, on the other hand, sounds more relaxed: it is made for the dance but works perfectly when you think of it as a tune used to add a touch of energy and enterprise to a set that needs switching up a notch. I also very much like the quasi-donk flavours and wonky bassline of Hnqo and Bip’s ‘As I See’, and the slow, thunking ‘Bitches in the Project’ by Amine Edge and Dance. In fact, the more I listened to this compilation, the more I skipped over the ‘big’ names in order to get to the unknown gems scattered liberally throughout the tracklist.
Despite this, the bigger names bring the goods too. Gorgon City and Yasmin’s ‘Real’ is delightful: wonderfully chilled; while Midland’s ‘Trace’ is as good now as when it was released on Aus Music last year. The Shadow Child remix of Dave Spoon’s ‘At Night’ was furthermore something I hadn’t come across before. On the down side though, in my opinion ‘Always Takes Me Higher’ isn’t one of Groove Armada’s crowning achievements. In truth, it’s difficult not to like the vast majority of the tunes on this album. They’re all stylish, dance-floor orientated, polished pieces of well-engineered deep house music. But I can’t help feeling that the reason that it’s hard to not like this album is because most of the tunes follow that exact same mould with minimal originality or deviation from the norm. I apologise if this seems cruelly reductionist to an assemblage of vastly talented artists, but it’s almost like there’s a set template to this collection: a vocal sample just before the drop, a throbbing lead synth, a particular BPM margin…like a tick box of attributes that make a good ‘deep house’ tune.
In fact, I guess this is always a risk with compilation CDs: that the desire to have a compilation that holds together and speaks to a particular sound backfires and becomes a bit…samey. After the first three tunes of CD1 I was already settled in for what I knew would be a pleasant but not a riveting journey. There was never a sense of excitement or anticipation with this album, just a sense of pleasing, placid approval that barely changed at all as I listened through it. At no point did I think ‘I wonder what the next tune will sound like.’ And at many points did I think ‘What time is Death in Paradise on tonight?’
Just to reiterate then, I like this album. But it fails the Aural Wallpaper test. It blends seamlessly into the background of everyday life, a pleasant soundtrack to any pleasant day in any pleasantly normal week. It stands in stark contrast to albums that hit you over the head with a musical cane and demand your undivided attention for every second of every minute. Indeed, if that’s what you’re after, I would refer you to Akkord’s astonishingly good self-titled album on Houndstooth, or Zed Bias’s recent album ‘Boss’ on Swamp 81. ‘Deep Intentions’ is more musical feather than musical cane. As a thrill ride, it sadly misses the mark. Good, then, but not excellent.
Words: Matthew Scott
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