Dead Horse

The title Dead Horse archly pre-empts the criticism that Cassetteboy is flogging a dead horse by offering yet another full-length collection of spliced-together pop culture ephemera that mostly serves to deliver sex and drug jokes. Sounding like a younger and raunchier Negativland, Cassetteboy's lawsuit-baiting cut-and-paste jobs take swipes at Michael Jackson, Dido, Harry Potter, and The Da Vinci Code, but there are more serious moments, too, as the group manipulates the speeches of George W. Bush and Tony Blair to comment on the culture of fear and the capitalistic underpinnings of war. The silly humor is entertaining if obvious; devious editing transforms a fire prevention PSA into a promotion of arson, and a news item on pain management into one on pain induction. The interstitial beats and loops, mash-ups, and use of music beds create a rhythmic flow that prevents Dead Horse from seeming like a spoken word album, and provides a musical component that enhances repeated listening. The painstaking effort that went into editing together the pieces is apparent, but the bathroom and political humor is often no sharper than the countless like-minded manipulations that circulate on the Web. ~ Greg Adams