Bowery Electric, "Lushlife"

Trip-hop is derivative of the most urban of art forms, Hip-hop. Most
Trip-hop borrows the beats and sampling of hip-hop to create a film
noir atmosphere. Bowery Electric adds the grittiness, fear, and
anomie of the urban landscape to their brand of trip-hop. Where
Portishead is psychotically interior and Hooverphonic is escapist,
Bowery Electric captures the isolation and fear of a New York or
Chicago winter. Lawrence Chandler's compositions are textural,
repetitive and darkly orchestral. Phantom horns and creeping violins
roam over sterile beats, evoking a nighttime landscape redolent of
the demimonde in Taxi Driver: the sepia-brown of the street lights,
the neon-lit canyons of tall buildings, the eddy of traffic, the
stink of humanity. The beats are relentless as you walk down a
street; you turn up your collar against the wind and steadfastly
avoid the mini-dramas enfolding before you, of love and hate and
everything in between. Vocalist-bassist Martha Schwendener sings
with icy detachment. It's a voice robbed of emotion, extremely
guarded, and observant. The lyrics are filled with the images,
sounds and smells of the city, mixing violence and sensuality through
the haze of loneliness. The aesthetic is encapsulated by the
song `Psalms of Survival,' where Schwendener sketches out a
topography of alienation. `Lushlife' has a disquieting
beauty that
shines through all of its tracks.
--Craig