By now, many of us have experienced Australian bloke Nick Bertke's remix videos, under his stage name of Pogo. His work remixing Disney films like Up, Toy Story 3, and Alice in Wonderland into enjoyable viral videos is certainly unique, and his widespread success speaks to the catchiness and novelty of the medium. Pogo's certainly carved out a niche with this video remix thing (Disney has actually hired him to do remixes), but how does the music stand up without the animated fun?
Right at the end of last month, Pogo dropped an LP, Texturebox, that detailed some of his archival material, before he got in the movie remix game. Texturebox does sound like a mishmash of archival tunes, and not a fully fleshed out LP. With track titles like "Excerpts Of Whatever The Hell" you can tell Pogo was just experimenting, but many of the same principles are present here as in the popular videos (smooth atmospherics, tiny snippets of vocals, light and airy glitches). I personally wonder what the source material for "ADD Is Only The Beginning" was. In all, Texturebox is not as complex or impressive as offerings from many electronic musicians, and Pogo may be derided as a fad artist. I remain undecided, except that the album is enjoyable enough to listen to, if seemingly lacking the attitude of most electronic artists in my rotation. Turn up the bass, man!
Pogo's latest gig is something he calls "Remixing the World," a CD, DVD, and online release project to create a track and video for every culture in the world, sampling all manner of sounds, man-made and natural. Such a grandiose endeavor would, according to Pogo, be funded only by donations from his viral army of supporters. Now that would be quite the novelty.
Pogo - "UPular"
Pogo - "Bangarang (Hook Remix)"
Pogo - "Gardyn"
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