SomethingALaMode

I originally downloaded their cover track, A Little Bit of Feel Good (video below), from the great music site, Aurgasm. I had actually forgotten about them until just last night when putting together a play list on Itunes and rediscovered them by accident. SomethingALaMode consists of Thomas Roussel (violin) and Yannick Grandjean (cello). Both of them professionally experienced, they also work the electronics and put together something much more impressive than your average “gimmick” strings band. Unlike many other modern electronic artists, rather than using their strings as a novelty- they instead have composed some great music and programmed the synthesizers to fit around the real instruments.

Watching their promo video and listening to the album have brought me some excitement. I always enjoy something fresh and new and I’m a huge fan of the idea of an album. A major problem lately in pop and rock is that the cohesiveness and themes of albums seem to mostly be replaced with over-produced sounds lacking an original idea, all trying to be the next new hit track. In fact, I remember at the dawn of Itunes and Ipods reading of a famous female pop star who said she had no problem with the death of the album and that she would rather focus on writing one hit song instead having to write an entire album. Where is the passion in that? (P.S. if anyone can point me to who that was and possibly an article to quote that would be great :D)

Their self-titled album starts off with fitting introduction track; a retro synth beat, french samples, reverbed strings. From there it dives straight into Gstring, a well written dance track with some ideas reminiscent of electronic group Justice. 5AM is a chic tune that makes me think of driving around freely on a sunny day and enjoying the weather. Many of the tracks go great right into the next. Tracey’s Interlude starts off a bit dark and lamenting, transitioning into the more pleasant and 60’s French sounding Easy Loving with some possible early video game music influence sounding synth chords. As of writing this I have only listened to about the first half of the album, but I’m looking forward to the rest. This is simply more proof that you can do anything with the violin!

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