Sneaker Pimps – Becoming X (1997)

posted by record facts

Becoming X is the debut studio album by English electronic band Sneaker Pimps. It was first released on 19 August 1996 in the United Kingdom by Clean Up Records and on 25 February 1997 in the United States by Virgin Records. The album marked the only appearance of Kelli Dayton as lead singer before she was asked to leave the band; Chris Corner replaced her for the band’s subsequent albums.

One thing that has not changed in the current electronic-dance revolution is the old pop-music male/female division of labor. With some exceptions (Margaret Fiedler of Laika, Riz Maslen of Neotropica, and a few others), too much electronica relies on the boys to handle the heavy machinery and the girls to croon over the beats. Two new English groups don’t veer from this formula, but they do stretch the margins of this fruitful idiom.

The London-based trio Sneaker Pimps designs its sparse arrangements in the Tricky mold (think of fractured fairy tales with a stoned vibe), adding snippets of bracing guitar and a little rock attitude. Bitter detachment is the order of the day here: Vocalist Kelli Dayton sings like a teenager sulking alone at the prom, her Nancy Sinatraish voice and sarcastic tone matching the sinister tracks – the B-52’s-ish “Tesko Suicide” floats flute and distorted guitar over a booming beat as a complement to its suicide tale; “6 Underground” samples a lush John Barry soundtrack tune into a pre-dawn hallucination; “Post-modern Sleaze,” meanwhile, combines rambling acoustic guitar, upright bass and eerie synthesizers with a low-fi flair. Using just a few stark elements, Sneaker Pimps make pop as tension-filled as an Edgar Allan Poe novel.

Plenty of post-rave-scene acts sample strings, horns, percussion and keyboards, but few do it as thoughtfully, or with such ambition, as Lamb, who hail from Manchester, England. Drawing on producer Andy Barlow’s housemusic background and singer Louise Rhodes’ love of Joni Mitchell, the duo creates a startling tryst of electronic experimentation and traditional songwriting structure.

Lamb upends drum and bass’s habit of piling random samples over an endless groove: Barlow’s beats morph and churn like some ballet-trained monster, while Rhodes’ dramatic, smoky voice sails effortlessly overhead. The album opens with a panorama of harps sweeping over a 7/4 beat in “Lusty” while Rhodes sings as if in a fever, arcing notes and sighing deliriously. “God Bless” and “Gorecki” continue this violently swirling spell, while other tracks (“Feela,” “Zero”) place Rhodes’ voice over lone piano chords or cello.

Sneaker Pimps and Lamb may appear to be different sides of the same electronic coin, but both groups succeed in melding pop style with underground dance grooves, blurring boundaries and expectations. Becoming X and Lamb are arguments that electronica is a worthy heir to more time-tested musical genres – and not just a fluke of computer literacy.

 

Track listing

  1. Low Place Like Home – 4:37
  2. Tesko Suicide – 3:44
  3. 6 Underground – 4:05
  4. Becoming X – 4:14
  5. Spin Spin Sugar – 4:20
  6. Post-Modern Sleaze – 5:11
  7. Waterbaby – 4:10
  8. Roll On – 4:27
  9. Wasted Early Sunday Morning – 4:27
  10. Walking Zero – 4:31
  11. How Do (cover of “Willow’s Song” by Paul Giovanni) – 5:01

All tracks are written by Chris Corner, Liam Howe, Ian Pickering

 

Samples

  • “6 Underground” sampled John Barry’s track “Golden Girl” from the film Goldfinger (1964)
  • “Becoming X” sampled Sandy Denny‘s track “Next Time Around” (1971)
  • “Spin Spin Sugar” sampled Luciano Berio‘s “Visage” (1961)[16]
  • “Post-Modern Sleaze” sampled the ritual music from the final scenes of the film The Wicker Man (1973)
  • “Waterbaby” sampled David Sylvian‘s track “Let the Happiness In” (1987), “Guru Sri Chinmoy Aphorism” by Carlos Santana and Alice Coltrane (1974) and Jimmy Fontana‘s track “Il Mondo” (1965)
  • “How Do” sampled the Rachel Verney vocal audio from the soundtrack in the 1973 British horror film The Wicker Man
  • Live versions of “Spin Spin Sugar” often sampled Kraftwerk‘s track “Boing Boom Tschak” (1986)
  • “Can’t Find My Way Home”, the B-side to “6 Underground” sampled John Martyn‘s track “Go Down Easy” (1973)
  • The demo version of “Low Place Like Home” sampled David Sylvian‘s tracks “Before the Bullfight” and “Wave” (1986)

Sneaker Pimps

Other personnel

Notes
Released: 19 August 1997
Genre: Electronic, trip hop
Length: 52:57
Producer(s): Jim Abbiss, Line of Flight, Peter Collins, Flood

Label – Virgin Records

Leave a comment