Recent Articles

Recent Articles by Dominic Umile

National Features >

  • Broward-Palm Beach New Times

    Sexual Healing

    For Florida's sole remaining sex surrogate, love is a many splintered thing.

    By Michael J. Mooney

  • City Pages

    Your Friendly Neighborhood War Profiteer

    It's not just giant companies cashing in on America's defense industry.

    By Jeff Severns Guntzel

  • The Pitch

    Supersizing Sonic

    How a throwaway idea at the Barkley ad agency became the "Sonic Guys."

    By Justin Kendall

  • Houston Press

    Temples of Tex-Mex

    A diner's guide to Texas's oldest Mexican restaurants.

    By Robb Walsh

DJ Mayonnaise

Still Alive
(Anticon)

By Dominic Umile

Published on August 02, 2007

Eight years have passed since DJ Mayonnaise's debut LP, and while the Portland, Maine producer piled droning keyboards, brass, and ample noise on downtempo beats for Still Alive during this hiatus, he held fast on an apparent refusal to choose a less embarrassing moniker. Mayonnaise — er, let's use his birth name, Chris Greer — won't particularly blow minds with Still Alive, but his vision sporadically delivers compelling bedroom listening. "May Days" is a highlight in the album's sunnier fraction, with a melody riding on three curt notes and clarinet that never climbs into solo dickery, but instead sways only slightly, like swamp cattails on a breezy spring afternoon. Although emcee K-the-I??? drops in for one tour on Still Alive, his verses spill over with simplistic knee-jerk political gripes, and the LP's wordless stunts remain strongest. "Quiet on the Set" is busy and muddy, with Greer's slick, slovenly cuts sandwiched between jumpy DJ Shadow-styled drum breaks. "Munjoy Moments" and "Easily Distracted" make notable use of glassy synth tones and tempo changeups, but by the end, Greer's eight-year absence is somewhat un-accounted for: Was he so busy with Still Alive that he couldn't alter his stage name?



Phoenix New Times Insiders

  • Local food, music and news blasts
  • Free Stuff
Backpage.com