Thursday 28 August 2008

Rex the Dog. The Rex the Dog Show



Here we go pop pickers, another 3 Bar Fire review.....


Rex the Dog

Rex the Dog Show


Hundehaus Records

Electro Pop

Pop and rave, are two musical genres that have managed to be stretched so far from their roots by commercialisation that they now stand together as inbred parodies of their former glories. Pop music has moved a million miles from its classical sense of ‘popular’ acquiring a manufactured vacuous tarnish en route, whilst rave remains relevant only to pubescent youth in market towns.

Despite these obvious handicaps, Rex the Dog has managed to create a simmering mix of these maligned genres to create perhaps the best pop rave album of the decade.

Rex the Dog, is rumoured to be an alias for many things, some say an uber cool lowlands techno showman, others claim the dog is actually none other than ‘JX’ of less cool nineties chart bothering ‘Son of a Gun’ fame.

It’s a difficult (and unfashionable) feat in dance music to add fun and emotion to the beat, but thankfully the demise of dull, pitch perfect progressive beat mixing has seen a real return to partying and occasional sightings of the mysterious ‘acid house vibe’; alongside actual smiles on the dancefloor.

The Rex the Dog show takes no prisoners it its unrelenting techno ambitions, this is certainly not cartoon pop showmanship. Instead tracks such as ‘Bubbilicious’ hit exactly the right note as a bumping bass trades blows with a insistent synthetic melody that favours both feet and head. Club banger ‘Circulate’ uses similar tricks to create a genuine groover filled with warmth and passion, fired along by the power of analogue keyboards and clicking percussion.

Its not all banging beats however as the inclusion of a remix of the Knives ‘Heartbeats’ (think Sony Bravia), offers melancholic excursion into techno folk adding more melody for your money to the bouncing beats.

Despite his potentially dubious background Rex the Dog has unleashed a real treat here. Lovers of quirky electronic pop and sweaty basement clubbers alike can unite to fight the acid house wars together for the first time since the halcyon days of the KLF
Rex the Dog Mash Up Goldfrapp