Minnesota State University Reporter

Issue date: 11/18/08 Section: Music

Media Credit: myspace.com Senor Coconut's album "Around the World" features covers of popular songs from different genres.

I hate to do this to you, faithful readers, but imagine if you will all the following: Air, Manu Chao, Kraftwerk, Trio, Afro-Cuban Jazz, Daft Punk, and I Love Lucy's Ricky Ricardo Band engaging in an all-out, no-holds-barred orgy. Now, if one of the female members of one of those groups had a child and (probably scarred by the experience) gave the child up for adoption, Señor Coconut would have been the one to adopt it.

Señor Coconut is the intentionally ridiculous moniker of German DJ and electronic producer Uwe Schmidt. He is known as the father of Aciton (a mixture of Reggaeton and Acid) and Electrolatino (a fusion of Electronica and Latino) music, which stems from being German and starting his career in Germany before moving to his present home of Chile. As one of an overwhelming number of aliases, "Around the World" is his sixth album under the Señor Coconut and His Orchestra name. The name of the album comes from the Daft Punk song of the same name.

The song "Around the World" is used three times: as an intro, interlude, and outro, each, with it's own uptempo beat and latino tinge. But it's much more than a song on an album. It acts as the leitmotif of the album. Each song takes the listener on a journey, you guessed it, around the world.

On the album, consisting of "covers" of popular songs spanning different genres around the world, Señor Coconut makes all the songs more exciting than their original counterparts by dissecting and surgically reordering them in his electrolatino style to create something wholly new. And it is amazing for something so scattered globally to sound so focused and audibly pleasing.

From "Around the World (Intro)" we go to England to hear Señor's take on the Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams." Its quick, pulsating build-up complements singer Argenis Brito's shaky accent well and lyrics such as "travel the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something" fit perfectly into Señor Coconut's theme. Choosing the emblematic Trio's "Da Da Da" to represent his home country of Germany and Prince's "Kiss" to represent America, Señor Coconut somehow uses horn sections, kettledrums and an addition of a bassline to "Kiss" to make the tracks feel and sound minimalistic. And at any time the listener excitedly feels like Ricky Ricardo is going to jump out and yell "Mambo!"

More traditional to his style, Señor Coconut takes on the Brazilian classic "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars.)" Resembling Air's "Alone in Kyoto," the song tells the tale of a lost traveler finding his home in the love of a woman. Vocals are sent through an electronic filter and the song is a melody of swaying horns, metronome percussion and Wah-Wah pedal.

Staying somewhat in the same global region, Señor Coconut covers famous Cuban/Mexican bandleader Perez Prado's "Que Rico El Mambo." As an unconventionalist, Prado is Coconut's biggest inspiration in music and Coconut would have made him proud with a sound so far from the standard of any genre. The song gets chopped and spliced and features an amazing synth line that sounds like what would be the Hispanic Mario Bros. theme song.

Various spots one the album feature him reversing his process, taking a digital track and churning it back out acoustic ("Pinball Chacha"), using a jittery nervous accompaniment as a metaphor to a problem in the Merengue scene ("White Horse") and covering a song that sounds like it's straight off a Chilean ghetto and whose title, ("La Vida Es Llena De Cables (Life Is Full Of Cables)" I assume is a lot like his life.

Señor Coconut is truly an originator in his approach to album making. Señor Coconut took a concept so simple and found the complexities within it to almost mathematically formulate a symphonic journey around the world. And even when we think the album is over, he surprises us once more with two bonus tracks that breeze over the album reflectively and perfectly, almost acting as end credits.

Rating: 4/5 stars


Nate Brennan is a Reporter staff writer

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