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In the pantheon of dance/electronica music there are a myriad of
unknowns making great music, creating grooves that are danceable and
immediately likeable. One such relative unknown is Anthony Neely
a.k.a. Ant. Ant's music is a vicious blending of analog synths,
cool breakbeats, and old school sampling that is sure to make your
booty move as it grooves along. Tracks like "Scratch Redux"
are filled with nice summertime vibes, synthy basslines, nice smooth
female vocals, and copious amounts of groove; think Dee-lite
for the new millennium. On "Lucky," Ant drops some juicy
grooves and tosses in samples from an old "instructional video"
from the 50s/60s about being in love and the pitfalls of same. The
music plays a perfect backdrop to the brilliantly tongue-in-cheek
cockamamie storyline. Ant has a penchant for finding old public domain
samples to flesh out his jazzy electronic grooves. One of the most
auspicious things about Not Fit For Human Consumption is the
simple beauty of how Neely builds the tracks around a simple phrase
and fills the track with other noises, samples, and instruments, giving
the most simple item a brand new life. When Ant takes a voiceover
from Encyclopedia Brittanica's Atoms For Peace film and scores
it against a spare drum'n'bass background, he has created a weirdly
stark landscape that very ably conveys the oddness of the subject
matter and the innocent way that such a strong subject was presented
at one time. Building tracks from and around a simple theme or phrase
is something that Neely has shown himself to be quite proficient at,
and his remixing and sampling abilities are without equal.
I don't think Norman Cook is going to give you permission
to sample his work… but Ant will and does on this new record,
all under the auspices of the Creative Commons Licensing (http://creativecommons.org).
Additionally, permission is granted to download and redistribute the
songs, as long as song titles and credits are attached. Perhaps the
world is finally ready for a more open sampling and downloading community
among musicians and their fans. I hope so… I think it would open
worlds of musical opportunity, among the artists and the listening
public.
-L. Keane
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