The Severed Cortex

Link: http://www.myspace.com/thearchcupcake

Truth be told, I bought this for the name and the cover art. Anyone who calls himself the Arch Cupcake has to be a little off center.  We all know I am off center.  The Arch Cupcake's MySpace page credits Sonny Rollins and Fugazi as influences and while that would seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, the combination hits me right in my wheelhouse.  How someone comes up with idea of calling themselves the Arch Cupcake is a good idea is beyond me.  It's just not a moniker that really inspires fear, unless of course you have a lot of enemies and a serious lack of will power over cupcakes.  Aside from lethal desserts, it's not really a moniker that makes one take an artist seriously.  Fortunately this can be classified as electronica, a genre with so many nonsense names that the Arch Cupcake seems normal by comparison.  I suppose there are a number of ways that you can interpret the name, but my vote is that it means the anti-pussy. As in wussy, not the other two meanings.

Hard to think of an electronica artist as being a bad ass though isn't it?   I mean meeting Moby in a dark alley hardly seems meancing.   As my friend Dave Miller once said at a Crystal Method show, "I like it even though I know it's two nerds with some laptops."  But even nerds produce a couple of bad asses and I suppose The Arch Cupcake could qualify for the role.  For one, he can actually play instruments, and not just a keyboard either.  Just like Beck circa 1994, the Arch Cupcake has two turntables and a microphone and he displays some pretty mad old school cut and scratch style. Check this out.

Pretty bad ass, huh? Especially the turntable skills. Or is it skillz? He also does a passable beat box too.

There are few better music experiences for me than to strap on a set of headphones and start writing a bunch of code.  This is where electronica reigns king for me.  Jazz is cool to listen to but sometimes it can lull you to sleep.  Electronica is built with dance in mind so by nature it is upbeat.  Hip-hop has the nice beats that keep your brain pumping but the lyrics get in the way of concentrating on writing the code.  Electronica seldom has that vocal impediment.   The Arch Cupcake has all of this at once.  There's obviously some jazz training somewhere in TAC's past so jazz is covered.  You only find turntables in one genre so hip-hop is covered too.  Mash it all together and you have some damn fine coding music.

Look, I know it's electronica music and typically it isn't worth buying.  I've kind of stopped buying a lot of it since you can go onto any number of internet radio stations and listen to it for free.  And let's call it as we see it.   It all sounds the same, right?  I can't really argue with you.  But every once in awhile you just get in the right mood though and you're looking for something specific.  I'm here to tell you that this is the specific thing you are looking for.  The easy thing to do is buy the whole thing and listen to it from front to back, but for those on a budget I suggest buying the four song set starting with No Dice, a straight drum and bass track. Follow that with Future Kitsch which throws pretty much every style against the wall, with most of it sticking.  Next up should be El Gato Attacks which might be a slight step backwards but the lounge jazz beat draws you in and then quickly hands you off to some of the sweetest turntable action.  But the best song is Tree Top Road Block, which has an absolutely sick dub beat.  I also recommend Sunday Gravy Boat. Here's the video to El Gato Attacks (98 Oldsmobile Mix).  I can picture myself back home cruising slowly in Charles 'Sweet Pea' Jones '71 model listening to this, one arm hanging out the window and the other hand on a cold 40.