The Daily Spin, September 28
Brian Bennett | KPM 1000 Series: Hot Wax
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.
Album: KPM 1000 Series: Hot Wax (1976)
Artist: Brian Bennett
Link:
I’ve spoken before about my love for SB Nation’s Jon Bois, whose works such as 17776 and 20020 have massively shaped not only how I engage with media from a reader’s perspective, but whose works also directly influenced the way I create in a massive sense. His most recent megaproject, The History of the Minnesota Vikings, is available on YouTube and deserves truly astounding plaudits.
All this to say, a lot of this feels like the sort of sound that would feature in his videos, and further inspection determines that it’s absolutely true - these are a dozen deeply Boisian tracks, easy jazz and elevator music, a little more oomph than you might expect coming out of that (but not enough to truly grab you).
That’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? With music like this, you’ve got to have something bigger weighing heavy overtop - whether that be the emotional crescendo of the Minneapolis Miracle or the deeply existential conversations held by three satellites wandering through a world we can only hypothesize about it - and when you lose that, you lose the impact of this music.
Rating: 7.3/10
Best Tracks: Taste for Living; Dossier
Worst Tracks: Fresh Start; Capital City