Title: 3^3
Artist: Mo Junkie
Release Date: 2014 Sept 03
Genre: Downtempo / Experimental / Hip-Hop
License: CC BY-NC-ND
Label: Phonotactics

Introduction

Sometimes the name an artist chooses for him or herself has ironic meanings that they don’t intend.  This, I think, was one of those cases as this artist was really going by the name Motown Junkie, but decided to short it.  Unfortunately, in this case the meaning comes through: Mo Junkie mo junk.

Mo Junkie Mo Junk

I’m honestly scratching my head just now, trying to remember how I came across the Phonotactics BandCamp site.  I honestly can’t remember — what I do recall is that I had one of their release pages open in my browser for at least a couple of weeks.  If I leave something open that long, it typically means I really wanted to check it out.

So, when I was running around recently gathering up a bunch of new releases, I grabbed 3^3 by Mo Junkie. I think I had sampled tracks from a couple of releases on Phototactics, including the first track on this release and thought it sounded interesting.

But, having listened to the whole release a few times I can say that beyond the first track on this release, there isn’t much that would encourage most listeners of downtempo or hip-hop.  Even the description of experimental is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.

Most of the tracks on this release are about as rough as they come.  I would have thought that this was closer to being a demo than a release.  The mixing is crude, the samples aren’t well-balanced to each other, the sequencing feels completely slapped together.  The one positive thing I can say about this release is that it eschews the stereotypical hooks that have come to dominate downtempo and trip-hop releases.  Unfortunately, without anything else to support it, these tracks just kind of fall apart in a rather unpleasant way.

Conclusion

The simple conclusion to this review is: don’t bother.  The only potential redeeming factor to this release is the lack of typical hooks, but unfortunately there isn’t enough here to take the place of the hooks to make it stand out.  The first track is nice, but beyond that there really isn’t anything to recommend this release.

Mo Junkie: 3^3

€3 (or more)
4.5

Rating

4.5/10

Posted by George De Bruin