#15. MADVILLAIN “FANCY CLOWN” directed by Matthew Wood.
Written by Matthew Wood & Aaron Moores / Fancy Clown played by Aaron Moores / Make-Up: Esther Belfield / Colour grading: Gavin Tickle / Sound: Mark Stevenson / waxeyes.com / Madvillain (MF DOOM & Madlib) “Fancy Clown” is taken from the album Madvillainy (2004).

#14. JAYLIB “HEAVY” created by Charlie Crumlish.
How could we resist? / Jaylib (J Dilla & Madlib) “Heavy” from the album Champion Sound (2003).

#13. MADVILLAIN “FANCY CLOWN” directed by Dominik Galizia.
Mini Doom (Viktor Vaughn) – Danny Noel / Fictional Girlfriend – Mehira Cruz / Ludwig van Eichendorff – Andreas Eisenach / Also featuring Enrico “Curtis” Erhardt, Arthur Schmidt, Konstanin & Sergej Griniak / HulahoopMEDIA.

#12. MADLIB “FALLING” created by Jovan Jimenez.
Featuring Anna Jones, cinematography Bobby Rocwell / 2jmotion.com / dudegot.com / “Falling” is the instrumental version of the Dudley Perkins track from the album A Lil’ Light (Instrumentals) (2003).

#11. “THE OCCULT” (JAMES PANTS “BEYOND TIME”) by Jean-Pierre Caner.
jeanpierrecaner.com / James Pants “Beyond Time” is taken from the album Seven Seals (2009).

The Fader says:

“Tyler gave James Pants the stems for ‘Seven’ from his album Bastard and let him turn him into a devil with a thing for sonar ping and deep hand drums. There’s also a bit of late song sexy sax which turns into solo sad sax. James Pants is the kind of dude who has one mode, pretty much switched to geek out at all times. Tyler’s got the fuck/party/kill mode on lots, but he recedes to nerd when appropriate. Basically this song is like they are the King of Queens and Adam Sandler in that movie about pretending to be domestic partners, except instead of firefighters they have MacBook Pros with expensive software, some they bought, some they stole.”

Publicized as an unmistakable voice of “fresh beats,” Pants is anything but. Welcome isn’t “fresh” by any means, but rather comes across as a shallow representation of the simplicity that made early synth-music so good. Instead of working up danceable beats like his predecessors, Pants seems intent to simply tease what could have been. Drawing you in with a catchy horn or a or a thick drum beat, he nearly always botches his tracks within the first 30 seconds. The flatness of the record is made worse as he somehow manages to work in pretty much every annoying sample from the last 30 years: robot voice – check, lawn-mower – check, car engine – check, gun-shots – check. The samples on the record seem to have been chosen for their eccentricity rather than their fit with the music; songs like My Girl become immediately off-putting after what sounds like a garage band practice session is made worse with psuedo-space noises that come out of nowhere.

And for a synth-record, Welcome is remarkably not jive inducing; tracks will not get you all “dumb in the club.” Pants has a penchant to work in sounds from a variety of genres, but on Welcome he strips away their character when he combines them, rendering them sub-standard. Maybe it’s charming in an ironic way, but if you do manage to listen long enough to hear some charm in it, it will eventually fade into insulting mediocrity.

With all my ragging, I do have to admit that there a few moments of mind-numbing brilliance. “Theme From Paris” and “Finger On The Knife”, with their Roots-centric drum-line cram more depth in a total of 4 minutes than the rest of the album as a whole. They’ll get you ridiculously happy, but much like the record, they’re only temporarily satisfying.

Welcome is a hard album to categorize. To Pants credit, there’s not much else on the market that sounds like it, but maybe there’s a reason why. He’s got undeniable talent, but until he gets rid of his distractions and focuses on making a fluid piece of music, it might be better to ignore him. – Michael Rodriguez