Crazy, Crazy Insane:
A Review of BEST CRISIS EVER by Apsci
A Review of BEST CRISIS EVER by Apsci
APSCI
Best Crisis Ever
Quannum Projects
2009
Ever talk to a crazy person so long that you find yourself wondering if they’re crazy or if you’re crazy? That’s how I felt this summer when I previewed Best Crisis Ever from Apsci. This album is not the album a sane rational artist makes. Normal people don’t think about music the way Apsci seems to. Normal people just don't do these sorts of things—not on purpose at least.
Best Crisis Ever is just what it sounds like 13 tracks of inspired off the wall talent that had a nervous breakdown, filed for bankruptcy and hid out in a room fulla nothing but noise-making machines and random instruments with no outside influences and didn’t come out until they were sure the coast was clear. Or until the voices in their head decided to take a nap long enough to let them think straight. Far as I’m concerned Jay-Z’s BP3 album cover was the result of listening to Best Crisis Ever; because that cover still makes no sense for Shawn but is the perfect snapshot into Apsci.
Simply put Best Crisis Ever is one of the best weird albums I've heard in at least 10 years. There's nothing convential about it. Apsci stands for "applied sciences" or apple scions or "a pissed screaming couple inerlude". I'm not really sure what Apsci stands for. I just know they're a ontage fronted by a 30something multicultural married couple who live in NYC—Dana Diaz-Tutaan is a Fillipino-Australian while her hubby, Ra LaMotta is from the Bronx and their DJ Big Wiz who was once part of the seminal indie label Def Jux, all of this and more makes Apsci about as mixed up musically as they're backgrounds that shaped them.
Let’s Rip The Town Up is as urgent and manic a party song as I’ve heard in the last five years. It’s sexy, it’s mechanical it’s angry it’s desperate and it makes you wanna wake up on Sunday thinking “I really need to go to church.”
Under Control has a funky new wave flavor but with a modern edge to it to be addictive. Crazy Crazy Insane is a grimy rocky sardonic love-like song that is clever without being smarmy or too hip for its own good. This song belongs on a movie soundtrack seriously.
Cubic Zirconia crams Prince and Techno and J. Davey esque into 2:10 of staccato madness that still stuck in my head.
Big Adventures comes out of left field—it's a really pretty song that reminds you that Dana can actually sing and sing well. And for that matter, songs like The Dark and Bittersweet End and Afford Me This Poetry reveal that Ra LaMotta can spit some serious heat.
For all the hype about them being a married couple, etc. Apsci is no gimmick. Ra and Dana are for real. And if they were younger and cuter or from a small town in the midwest, they'd be MTV darlings and every high school and college kid would be bumping all or part of this album leaving adults like me to figure out why something named Apsci just sold 3 million albums.
But they're not. So they probably wont. But at least the music's good. So give it a listen. You'll be glad you did.
Below is the video for Crazy Crazy Insane. And it is. Just see for yourself:
Best Crisis Ever is just what it sounds like 13 tracks of inspired off the wall talent that had a nervous breakdown, filed for bankruptcy and hid out in a room fulla nothing but noise-making machines and random instruments with no outside influences and didn’t come out until they were sure the coast was clear. Or until the voices in their head decided to take a nap long enough to let them think straight. Far as I’m concerned Jay-Z’s BP3 album cover was the result of listening to Best Crisis Ever; because that cover still makes no sense for Shawn but is the perfect snapshot into Apsci.
Simply put Best Crisis Ever is one of the best weird albums I've heard in at least 10 years. There's nothing convential about it. Apsci stands for "applied sciences" or apple scions or "a pissed screaming couple inerlude". I'm not really sure what Apsci stands for. I just know they're a ontage fronted by a 30something multicultural married couple who live in NYC—Dana Diaz-Tutaan is a Fillipino-Australian while her hubby, Ra LaMotta is from the Bronx and their DJ Big Wiz who was once part of the seminal indie label Def Jux, all of this and more makes Apsci about as mixed up musically as they're backgrounds that shaped them.
Let’s Rip The Town Up is as urgent and manic a party song as I’ve heard in the last five years. It’s sexy, it’s mechanical it’s angry it’s desperate and it makes you wanna wake up on Sunday thinking “I really need to go to church.”
Under Control has a funky new wave flavor but with a modern edge to it to be addictive. Crazy Crazy Insane is a grimy rocky sardonic love-like song that is clever without being smarmy or too hip for its own good. This song belongs on a movie soundtrack seriously.
Cubic Zirconia crams Prince and Techno and J. Davey esque into 2:10 of staccato madness that still stuck in my head.
Big Adventures comes out of left field—it's a really pretty song that reminds you that Dana can actually sing and sing well. And for that matter, songs like The Dark and Bittersweet End and Afford Me This Poetry reveal that Ra LaMotta can spit some serious heat.
For all the hype about them being a married couple, etc. Apsci is no gimmick. Ra and Dana are for real. And if they were younger and cuter or from a small town in the midwest, they'd be MTV darlings and every high school and college kid would be bumping all or part of this album leaving adults like me to figure out why something named Apsci just sold 3 million albums.
But they're not. So they probably wont. But at least the music's good. So give it a listen. You'll be glad you did.
Below is the video for Crazy Crazy Insane. And it is. Just see for yourself:
