Mahjongg

I've been a huge fan of Mahjongg's for five, six years now, since I saw them open for Macha in NOrthampton in 2004. I interviewed Hunter and Caryl there (she's not in the band anymore), and which you can read about that here, if you want. My copy of Raydonkong, I am very proud to report, is a CDR burner with Hunter's address scrawled across it.

So, yeah, of course I wanted to review the new one Long Shadow of the Paper Tiger, their second on K. I was a little put off by the production, but it's still pretty great in parts.

For this, their third full-length, however, this gang of musical anarchists dips into a new cache of sonic material—multi-platinum sounds like auto-tuned vocals and sleek dance beats. The process is the same—chopping blippy bits of tone into Afro-funky rave-ups—but the source material is disturbingly commercial. It takes a little getting used to, especially on the uncharacteristically shiny front half of the album.

The rest

I put "Devry" on my last mix, and since it doesn't look like they're giving anything away, better check that out if you're curious.