Review of The Broken Record from Splendid Ezine by George Zahora

Mike Langlie's first two Twink albums were created with his large collection of toy pianos. The Broken Record changes the formula, while permitting Langlie to sidestep into a slightly less obscure microgenre: it was assembled almost entirely from samples drawn from vintage children's records. Fittingly, Langlie hooked up with Negativland's inconstant house label, Seeland, for his voyage into — wait for it — kinder(plunder)phonics; why shouldn't the label have a kid-centric sub-imprint? The only thing they'd need is a jaunty "SEELAND JUNIOR" logo, complete with a crazed-looking "young Bob Dobbs"-type kid's face. All those expensive, non-violent yuppie toy stores would eat that up, right?

Of course, repurposing chunks of recorded material isn't a new idea. Acts like Greater Than One were mining the concept's dancefloor potential almost twenty years ago, and Negativland and Plunderphonics' John Oswald stirred up plenty of trouble with their own forays. Jive Bunny and the MasterMixers' half-assed take on the concept found its way into the pop charts fifteen years ago, and nowadays labels like Illegal Art have transformed cut and paste artistry into a cottage industry. On the downside, for every sample jockey who spends months, or even years, tooling his sound bytes into biting political commentary or compelling new musical forms (stand up, Amon Tobin), there's a Scottie's Cut and Paste Project churning out an album a month; all it takes is $50, a handful of patch cords and a couple of spare hours during which to dabble. Even Langlie, in his fairly tight niche, has unexpected competition: the recent Dimension Mix, a tribute to kid-centric label Dimension 5 and its edgy auteurs, Bruce Haack and Esther Nelson, features a handful of sample-based mixes that echo The Broken Record's aesthetic.

Fortunately, this isn't a fly-by-night effort. Langlie has been assembling The Broken Record for a couple of years, and his attention to compositional quality pays off. There's a simple acid test for sample-based records: do they function effectively as music, or at least as entertainment? Or are they simply showcases for their creators' production skills and/or copious free time? The Broken Record is definitely music. It's probably a little too frenetic to play in the background when you settle down with a good book, but active minds — particularly those that gravitate to incongruity in all its many and wonderful forms — will love it. Most children will dance themselves silly while it plays, laughing at the silly voices and goofy sounds, as well as the references to familiar tunes ("Pop Goes the Weasel" in "Monkeyshines", "Three Blind Mice" in "Three Blind Mice", and so on). Adults will enjoy the inventiveness with which Langlie has repurposed these records: he chops up dialogue to form rhythms, adds beats and effects to sustain the pace, creates impromptu conversations between characters from different stories, and tosses in a few iconic sounds (Woody Woodpecker, Robot from Lost in Space) to jump-start our memories. A few tracks, like the boisterous "Animal Talk" and goofy techno-romp "Boys and Girls", could be dancefloor material for daring DJs.

Impressively, Langlie resists the temptation to steer The Broken Record into the gutter — no doubt lopping a zero or two off of his sales figures in the process. It would be easy to turn the source material's archaic dialogue into a series of leering double entendres, but Langlie keeps everything above the belt, relying upon the same childlike earnestness that informed Twink and Supercute. As a result, you can share the record with your kids, if you want. Be prepared to do damage control of a different sort, though: Langlie delights in rearranging dialogue and altering its meaning, and some of his ideas may confuse the young'uns. While almost any blue state kindergartner will appreciate the humor behind "Alphabent"'s flubbed ABCs, "Let Me See How You Do It"'s tale of mixed-up animal traits may require some explanation. Most kids seem to have an instinctive understanding of whimsy, but subversiveness is another story.

Make no mistake: The Broken Record is novelty music — it says so on the album cover ("21 Musical Novelties"). As such, once you've had time to appreciate Langlie's technique and smile at his gently subversive mash-ups, your long-term listening options are limited. Here's your best bet: keep it on your shelf for a day when you oversleep, work is hellish, the drive home is nightmarish and there's a thick stack of bills waiting for you on the counter when you get there — then crack open the digipak, fire up the stereo, dim the lights and reacquaint yourself with the healing power of pure silliness.