Four hands are better than none. Since the days of Simon and Garfunkel and Sonny and Cher, the duo has long been a veritable combination in the popular music world. Keeping with tradition, Brooklyn’s Benevento-Russo Duo has arrived with Best Reason to Buy the Sun, the Duo’s Ropeadope debut. Produced by Joey Waronker (Beck, R.E.M) at the famed Sound Factory in Hollywood last August, the album captures the Duo on a whole new level, and it delivers.
Offering a much polished and refined approach to their live sound,
Best Reason to Buy the Sun presents the most poignant piece of work the Duo has produced to date. Though merely two men, the Duo bring with them a massive array of sound, manufacturing a product far greater than the feat of four hands. Marco Benevento’s slick B3 organ chops and distorted, pedal-fueled Fender Rhodes meet Joe Russo’s colliding cymbals and sampled beats head on, fabricating a sound much deeper than meets the eye.
Best Reason to Buy the Sun begins with “Becky,” as Benevento’s heavily distorted keys join left-hand gliding bass rhythms into a colorful organized chaos. On occasion, Russo adds a touch of electronic texture with some flavorful beat sampling to compliment his partner’s anomalous sound manipulation. “Sunny’s Song” elicits a summertime dream, almost evoking wildflowers blooming while “9x9” flows into ethereal, mind spinning looped space. One of the most powerful moments on Best Reason to Buy the Sun arises in “Scratchitti,” as percussionist Mike Dillon and saxophonist Skerik of Critters Buggin join the mix, creating a polyphonic thunderstorm of head banging, sweaty subway funk. With its sometimes smooth, sometimes in-your-face approach, the Duo’s Ropeadope debut is a collision of worlds and styles, proposing a sound full and gripping, leaving the listener wondering just how two men and four hands produced it.
Although choppy at times,
Best Reason to Buy the Sun is a solid, mind-expanding piece of post-modern art. The funky yet heavy, groovy but hectic delivery shines bright, and with it, a certain appeal that will move feet, bob heads and entertain ears.
For more info see: organanddrums.com
