Review Summary: .
I don't like dancing. I've always hated nightclubs for that very reason. Well, that and having to endure watching humanity's ugliest, dirtiest side be put on display in front of me while I sip on my beer and pretend to enjoy it, as some guy in a white cap leans over to me and says “this place is pumping, bro”, before stumbling off to wave his arms in the air amongst a troupe of other similarly basic primates. It's usually at this point that the existential dread starts to take over and I find myself questioning not only my own mortality but my very being, wondering if all of this is merely the product of someone else's dream or if it could in fact be...
Ah, screw it. We all know that regardless of the thoughts going through my head, I eventually join the knuckle-dragging masses, swigging my beer down and letting my body move to whatever that doof-doof-doof rhythm is that has characterised every dancefloor song released since cavemen hit two sticks together. This is pretty much the same process that plays out inside my head while listening to
No More Drama, a full-length release from respected trumpet player Mac Gollehon. Gollehon has worked with artists as diverse as David Bowie, Duran Duran, Grace Jones and Downtown NYC experimental pioneer Laurie Anderson, among others, and been nicknamed “Chops” by the legendary Miles Davis.
Despite his credentials, there doesn't seem to be anything particularly special about
No More Drama. Floor-pumping dance music this is not, but a familiar-sounding blend of EDM and Salsa that one can imagine gets put on at quasi-sophisticated house parties, where the aforementioned primates engage in fancy-dress orgies with masquerade masks, as opposed to simply boogying down in a T-shirt and jeans. However, the fact remains... after a good while your body simply gives in, and you find yourself shaking your ass around your living room while preparing a nice warm mug of Horlicks.
I guess what I'm saying is that for all its flaws – for all the reasons I could give you as to why this album is a complete waste of time to anyone who actually likes to sit down and really
listen to music – there are also an equally good number of reasons to just say “whatever”, turn the volume up and find yourself waving your finger at an imaginary little kid while repeating the first song's mantra of “no more drama”. Besides the quality trumpet playing – because yes, the trumpet playing is actually pretty impressive on this – there are also moments where the atmosphere of the record becomes psychedelic, roping you in to its ayahuasca-filled haze. Unfortunately these moments are short lived and most of the time you just seem like a dumbass washing dishes to danceable salsa music. Of course, the record clearly has no intention of being taken as a super-serious artistic endeavour and so you probably shouldn't bother judging it as one (despite how clear it is that I am doing just that).
Four of the album's ten tracks are remixes, although you probably won't even notice that they are rehashes of songs you heard just moments ago because it all sounds the same anyway. Again, I'd like to reiterate that for all the negative connotations those words hold this is not an altogether bad thing. It's just that Latin EDM has never been a genre (wait... has it ever been a genre?) for pondering your existence over... unless, of course, all that semi-naked-house-cleaning-ass-shaking actually forces you to re-evaluate all the decisions you've ever made up until that point and change for the better. But you're probably not going to. You're just gonna keep shaking that ass until you get tired and sit down to watch reruns of Family Guy.
This is not a review, just as this is not an album. This is some miniature guy with a trumpet playing
inside your Dad's old hi-fi speakers. And you're only going to bring him out to play when you need to impress some friends with your diverse taste, because all you really listen to is the Ozzy-era Black Sabbath albums and blink-182 (for the nostalgia, of course). You might also invite him to occasionally bust out his sultry rhythms while you brush your teeth in the morning before work. And that's about it. Honestly, whether that makes it an album worth owning is anybody's guess but one thing I know for sure is that the hips don't lie... and my hips are bloody sore after all that jiving.
