After recent full-length forays with LA-based emcee Roughneck Jihad, DJ Pnutz returns to go it solo again on new long player, Music Beds For Different Moods. Twenty tracks long, of which four are cinematic interludes and a further two a brief intro and outro, the album appears to have been inspired by the many and varied emotions experienced by your average human – hence the LP title. Of course, now you’re thinking – ‘ah, I get it, so after each interlude comes music reflecting a different mood!’ Well, yes and no.
Opener proper, Dance Until You Drop, is a lively big beatish affair that seems to betoken a bullish, upbeat frame of mind but the equally uptempo Dolby Decibel System which comes next uses a sinuous Eastern melody motif that indicates perhaps a more playful or even crafty humour while the slower, heavy drums-featuring Sunrise is altogether more contemplative. Which kind of dampens the one mood: one section theory. The first interlude pairs a vintage dialogue sample with a wafty piece of library-style music and then we’re into Hitsville California – and if the first section of the album arguably channels early Chemical Brothers, this is rather more Endtroducing-era DJ Shadow, a feeling encouraged by the doomy, heavy guitar fuzz-laden beats of Heads Will Roll and Enter The Arena of Gawds which in contrast to the opening section of the LP actually does contribute to the idea of a predominant mood for this section – albeit relatively dark. By the time we reach the third section though, anything goes again as the happy dancefloor vibes of Beachside Disco follow the moody Ya Flippin’ Pancake. But then fourth section – only two tracks long – contains the dreamy pairing of the trip-hoppy Go Ask Alice and the livelier but with a psych edge, Good And Plenty. Aha! A pattern within a pattern perhaps – not one mood per section but the alternating of many mood-sections with one-mood sections? The final part would suggest as much containing as it does the pomp of Driving Forces, along with the b-boy/girl franticness of Tweaking Sounds and Brass Conduction and the trip-hop lullaby of Encore. Which all kind of makes sense – given the way human mood can sometimes (but not always!) flip on a dime. But is Pnutz reflecting your/ her moods on this or influencing them? Maybe get into these ‘beds’ and find out…
(Out now HERE)