Cassettes Won't Listen Small Time Machine by: Dan Osmolowski Wed:13-Feb-08 Label: Independent Year: 2008 WB rating 48 out of 100

Cassettes Won’t Listen is the electronic pop project of New Yorker Jason Drake.  His first physical release, Small Time Machine, inhabits a genre that saw it’s zenith in The Notwist’s Neon Golden (2002) and The Postal Service’s Give Up (2003). Both of these excellent albums were filled with quality songwriting, lyrically and instrumentally dripping with atmosphere and emotion they crafted unique electronics that had sonic depth and a feeling of warmth but, conversely, a sense of isolation at the same time.  Essentially, both albums serve to highlight what is lacking in Drake’s one-man-band debut. 

What is evidenced on Small Time Machine is promising, no doubt. It is just that Jason Drake’s ideas peter out before each song’s conclusion – what seems like an interesting beginning, ends in misdirected and tired sentiments that have you thinking, “haven’t I heard this before?”  ‘Freeze and Explode’ goes so far as to facsimile Ben Gibbard’s lyrics and features, in what surely must be a homage to the opening vocal melody from The Primitive Radio Gods’ 1996 worldwide hit, ‘Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth with Money in My Hand’. ‘The Broadcast’ stumbles with embarrassing software loops and strives – but falls short – of an emotive gravitas that is AWOL throughout the majority of the record. When Drake relies too heavily on the arpeggio (as it is in ‘The Broadcast’) it is obvious that he is bereft of ideas and cannot see a logical progression to his songs beyond the second chorus. 

The album opens positively with ‘Metronomes’; all awash with light breakbeats and a rumbling lower end.  Things soon begin to go awry, however,  with ‘Large Radio’s’ horribly messy climax where synth strings clash with something that can only be described as a ‘flatulent’ bassline accompanied by endless gesticulations of “wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah”. Thankfully, Drake exercises some restraint and the album clocks in at a manageable seven songs.

The odd moment where Small Time Machine nails it, relies on more organic instrumentation; as in ‘Paper Float’s’ beautifully creeping piano (reminiscent of glory days DJ Shadow), ‘Finish Line’s’ looping, plucked acoustic guitar or ‘Metronome’s’ resonant bass rumble.  Here, Cassettes Won’t Listen reveals the genesis of a more restrained and humble offering that attempts to exist within a less facile framework. This may be a ‘bedroom’ offering (with Drake writing, playing and producing the record exclusively) but that is no excuse for cheap sounding beats and synths. One only has to look to Burial’s dub-step offering of the past year, Untrue to see evidence of deep, unique and complex software arrangements. Indeed, the likes of Air, Pavement and Will Oldham managed to extract more atmosphere – and without programming software – out of the much maligned Roland Groovebox on the 2000 compilation At Home With The Groovebox. 

Jason Drake has been commissioned to remix the work of acclaimed artists the likes of El-P, Midlake, Asobi Seksu and Dr. Octagon and even a cursory listen reveals some instrumentally engaging work. In particular, his reworkings of Aesop Rock’s None Shall Pass, Mr Lif’s Brotherz, and Pela’s Lost and Lonesome are fresh, insightful and fun. However, when left entirely to his own devices, he is reduced to relying upon fatigued and formulaic electro-pop recipes that are crying out to be bathed in the warming glow of the summer sun or nailed by the cold-hard reality of a frozen winter. At the moment, Small Time Machine exists somewhere in between – it offers up nothing new to the genre nor does it bolster its canon enough to be regarded a noteworthy release.