DESERT PLANET - Mario Built My Hot Rod
Desert Planet is a quite bizarre duo from Finland that likes to create unusual retro sounds. On their fourth album Mario Built My Hot Rod, you won't hear any traditional instruments. Nintendo's famous plumber, who is mentioned in the album title, hints at Desert Planet's sound that is very closely linked to old school 8-bit video games. The music is totally electronic and sounding like old fashioned computers and game consoles (C64, Amiga, Super Nintendo, Gameboy).
The songs on Mario Built My Hot Rod are bizarre, weird and sometimes difficult to follow. Granny Hunt, which features Eläkeläiset doing some sailor choirs, is the only track with a recognisable melody. The other songs present quite repetitive song structures which mostly are very rhythmic and danceable. But this shouldn't mean that the songs are all sounding the same. Turbo shows that a song may be heavy without using guitars. Hot Rod Garage somehow spreads a darker feeling. Cherokees is sounding very exciting, with music similar to boss fighting levels. Slurp! contains Asian influences. The only disappointing track is She-Creatures Of The Dry Sea which is too calm and not so funny. I wonder if these songs are suitable for youngsters who are more familiar with Playstation 2, Xbox or Gamecube. But for people who lived through the early days of video games history, this music is a pure nostalgic pleasure. As a bonus, the CD contains a couple of video clips by these crazy Finns and a simple, but entertaining video game.