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Birdy Nam Nam

Laura Gonzalez | 08/10/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Amazing. A revolution in turntabalism. I have never heard such creativity. If your into this kind of music, I suggest buying this, I was very pleased."

Never a dull moment

K. D. Kelly | sf, ca | 05/17/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Somewhere between Aphex Twin and Sesame Street, between bubbly and unnerving, resides this extremely off-kilter, inventive marriage of sound that's part jazz, part lounge, part hip-hop. For a quartet of French DJs who readily admit they haven't yet learned how to play instruments or read music, this turntablism experiment comes across as brilliantly polished (no instruments were used while making the album, just other records). Even when confronted with tracks like "L'interlude de qualite," in which a contemplative flute accompanies what sounds like amplified field recordings of arachnids molting -- and "Rainstorming," which pairs a slacker groove with scary bipolar whispers -- the album never seems deliberately quirky. This is Bjork's turf; J Dilla's "Donuts" with broader horizons, Avalanches with a thicker resume. The glue that holds Nam Nam all together are the infectious, fluid beats underlying all the cut-and-paste layers, particularly strong on the polyrhythmic skin-burrowing ambi-prog morsel, "Migration." Look for Nam Nam to get even more inventive on future releases when the DJs teach themselves how to play instruments and begin sampling themselves."