Cleveland - Crystal Quest

by Slav Ka

I have a beef with cilantro! It's not that I hate its taste; it's just that cilantro never plays nice with other ingredients, but pushes them aside to invade your taste buds until you taste nothing but cilantro.  Well,  melody is like the cilantro of music: no matter how diverse and nuanced your musical salad is, as soon as you add melody, it is all you are going to hear.  Add melody, and instead of complex rhythms, you suddenly hear basic thwacking. Gone are dynamic tension and release, call and response, and every other musical construct known to man: add a melody, and all you'll hear is just that damned la-la-la-la.  Good luck not whistling or humming it, if it's catchy enough. 

And, yes, I've been seeing a therapist about it! I've been making steady progress, controlling my melodic rage, and everything was going so well until the therapist played Cleveland's Crystal Quest EP during one of our sessions. Damn it! The title track is cilantro turned up to 11: gorgeous synth lines and warm soothing pads, swaying gently through the track like a Burner at a sunrise set. "But wait," says my therapist, "Listen to the percussion...do you hear polyrhythm and syncopation that would make a Cuban percussionist immediately reach for his clave?
Do you hear how it constantly evolves hardly repeating itself?" "Mmmmmm...cilantro", I reply, as I am already focused on "Armando The Lizard" hypnotic, spell-binding riff. Yes, I do hear those cute percussion-like thwacks, but I am already humming the main melodic line, shaping my lips into something of a duckface to help me. And "Payback"?! You take those gorgeous pulsating synths, add mantra that will get stuck in your head faster than gum to the sole of your shoe, and you expect me pay any attention to yet-again-clever percussion? Come on, Cleveland! Really? Will you also pay for me therapy?

Do you hear how it constantly evolves hardly repeating itself?" "Mmmmmm...cilantro", I reply, as I am already focused on "Armando The Lizard" hypnotic, spell-binding riff. Yes, I do hear those cute percussion-like thwacks, but I am already humming the main melodic line, shaping my lips into something of a duckface to help me.
 

And "Payback"?! You take those gorgeous pulsating synths, add mantra that will get stuck in your head faster than gum to the sole of your shoe, and you expect me pay any attention to yet-again-clever percussion? Come on, Cleveland! Really? Will you also pay for me therapy?