FREE MUSIC: Ulysses Campbell - Color It All

I found this album a little over a week ago and reviewed the hell out of it. If you want to hear for yourself you can find the full version on Ulysses Campbell's MySpace.

Here is what i had to say about it in The Recorder last week.

Good luck finding any information on what Ulysses Campbell is all about, outside of the fact that he is originally from New Hampshire and now resides in Florida, where he goes to school. The only reason you are hearing about him right now is that this shaggyhaired 21-year-old makes fantastic electronic music out of his bedroom that could make Avey Tare of Animal Collective jealous.

Ulysses Campbell and Color It All is the epitome of low-budget electro-rock that doesn’t skip on the static and uses a pretty standard Casio-like 61-key keyboard [ed. Campbell let me know that in fact uses a Korg Electribe, which he describes as "a little workstation that's 2/3rds drum machine and 1/3rd synth, and all 3rds awesome,"] homemade mixers and acoustic guitar. While Campbell’s set-up doesn’t sound like much, his creations sound rich enough to fool most listeners that an entire band is producing the blips and beeps f lowing through their speakers. This is not the case – Campbell is a doing it all himself.

“All in Front (of me)” kicks off the album with a disoriented mass of fuzzed distortion backed by 8-bit keyboard lines straight from late ‘80s video games. After a few moments this chaos fades away and Campbell shows us a quick glimpse of his voice, if only to draw in the listener to see what he actually has in store.

Of course, the second track really shows off how well Campbell can actually sing. “The Things That Happen So Often” brings back the distorted keys, but this time they play second to Campbell’s vocals, which are on display for the track’s first 60 seconds, after which they slowly disappear to allow Campbell’s bread and butter - spacey key lines and pounding drum machine beats. While he does bring back words about three minutes into the song, you shouldn’t care; you’ll already be nodding your head mindlessly to the beats.

Though I could go on endlessly about the rest of Color It All, the last five tracks will be for you to discover and make your own comparisons. The only thing you need to do to get yourself a copy of Color It All is to visit Campbell’s MySpace and click on the download link – simple, really.