Cassettes Won't Listen is the electronic pop project of Brooklyn's Jason Drake. For his day job, Drake works in marketing for the hip-hop label Def Jux, and he brings his business acumen to the presentation of his own work. After spending the last two years on a stream of remixes (of Midlake, Asobi Seksu, Aesop Rock, and many others), last December he released a free download-only covers EP called One Alternative, whose artwork and song selection (tunes by Pavement, Liz Phair, Sebadoh) were meant to inspire nostalgia in the generation that came of age in the post-Nirvana era. But while Drake has had some moderate success marrying the organic and glossy with the odd remix or cover, Small-Time Machine-- a seven-song, 30-minute album that feels much longer-- meets with more difficulty.
Comparisons have been made between Cassettes Won't Listen and electro-pop outfits like the Postal Service and the Notwist, but neither rings true. Unlike the Postal Service's Ben Gibbard, who had the luxury of laying his gut-punch turns of phrase over Jimmy Tamborello's lunar soundscapes, Drake is working alone and with less sonic imagination. Without the lyrical muscle of Gibbard (or one-time Tamborello associate Conor Oberst), his electronic backdrops don't have the color or edge to distinguish themselves. But the album's most striking weakness can't be chalked up to any shortage of hooky beat construction or bad poetry; rather, it's Drake's inability-- unlike, say, the Notwist's Markus Acher-- to integrate his often scratchy, Doug Martsch-biting vocals as an instrument into the mix.
To live with songs by a one-man band is to be alone with that man and his thoughts, so it's best if he can either invite you in or transport you elsewhere. With so much glitchy, bad CGI-like synth scramble in the way, Small-Time Machine becomes an unfortunate push-and-pull between equally hyperprocessed elements. Which leaves us in kind of a bind, because as much as Small-Time Machine feels like kitchen sinking gone awry, there are a few moments of pop transcendence, most notably at the album's halfway mark. After a rough initial stretch that includes the more abrasive chug and scrape of "Large Radio" and single "Paper Float", Drake opens up his vocal chords a bit and bounces up off the ropes with what could be the album's centerpiece. "Freeze and Explode" boasts blindfolded guitar lines that snake in and out of a chorus that Drake not only sings but drives home with a clarity sorely missing from the rest of the record.
It's sort of weird to think about someone like Ben Gibbard casting such an imposing shadow over Pentium rock. But just seconds after the aforementioned track closes, one more highlight in the lilting but clubby "The Broadcast" presents itself, if only because it bears the most palpable resemblance to Death Cab for Cutie. Which is totally cool, but it also makes that copy of the Postal Service's Give Up seem all the more appetizing right about now.
