New York, chosen city for the first of Time Out Magazine’s CD/DVD/Pocket-Sized Travel Guide series The Other Side, is a place I have been priviledged enough to visit but once and briefly. The impression of the city I gathered during my brief ramble around the Manhattan’s Lower East Side in late April sunshine, while providing me with plenty incentive to return, bears little or no resemblance to the impression created by the seventeen tracks compiled by Warren Fisher and Casey Spooner for the CD part of the package.
Of course, NYC natives are obviously better placed to represent the spirit of their (side to) city than day trippers, so instead of judging them on the merits of their representation of my idea of New York, actual, cultural, mythical or otherwise, I will try my best to stick to the music.
One of the first things that strikes you about the compilation is the number of artists who do not hail from New York: BLOC PARTY, BROADCAST and THE AU PAIRS amongst others contribute tracks which compliment the gritty, urban, edgy, dark, electronic, impeccably cool and cold atmosphere which permeates the compilation.
Having given the disc a couple of spins, I suspect that its merits could be best assessed in terms of the songs it introduces, or reintroduces, you to. Certainly hearing BROADCAST’s ‘Pendulum’ sandwiched between PRINCESS SUPERSTAR’s ‘Coochie Coo’ and ELECTRONICAT’’s ‘Bolantronic’ served to remind me how damn good that track is, and how fresh and different it sounds in comparison with its somewhat more generic bedfellows.
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As for new finds, LASSIGUE BENDTHAUS’ cover of Lennon’s ‘Jealous Guy’ is an impressive achievement on two accounts: it makes an overplayed and over-covered song listenable once again, and it represents one of the few examples of warm, ‘human’ sounding electronica on the compilation.
This lack of warmth is probably my main problem with the CD as a whole. While it is seamlessly mixed, from its opening overture-style sample of LAURIE ANDERSON’s ‘O Superman’ to the closing full length mix of the same song (another track which stands out in terms of its sheer otherness, even a couple of decades after its first exposure), The Other Side:New York's overly smooth surfaces serve to alienate as opposed to invite this particular armchair tourist.
As for the DVD element, suffice to say it is probably of little interest to anyone other than Casey Spooner aficionados, or consumers of BBC travel shows, as it is surprisingly banal for an ‘alternative’ take on what is in places the paradigm for an alternative city. Mind you, to compensate, there is a nifty little map on the CD inlay that I am planning to take with me next time I’m lucky enough to make the crossing.
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