Count the musical references in this review from
actionmagazine.com:
Ima Robot
Public Access
(Virgin)
- Jeff Csyz
"Is this Electroclash? The whole genre was aborted before it began, but Ima Robot comes out with Public Access and tries to put the stillborn
genre on some sort of life support, and for the most part it awkwardly succeeds.
The Public Access EP starts off with weird electronic sounds over live drums and the best electro bass playing this side of Ifihadahifi. Alex Ebert
sings somewhere between Robert Smith, the guy from Hot Hot Heat, and Sweet and breaks that feel like a true blue Monday.
“Black Jettas” with its “Ex-Girlfriends in Black Jettas” feels like the missing link between Kool Keith and New Wave, with disco-via-punk bass line,
Streets-style toasting and synth drum bleeps and bloops, the perfect soundtrack to doing lines of coke at a hacker convention.
Ima Robot continues the Sweet tradition with big tom drum driven bombast and “Girls love me” lyrics on “Sex Symbols on Parade” which trades in the
Devo and synth for guitars and even a wailing solo. It is quirky but short, pulling out just before it gets annoying as with the best of Tones On
Tail.
EP closer “The Beat Goes On” is huge and British feeling, recalling Joy Division or an effeminate synth pop, with synth string cheese, and some
subdued guitar.
The four track Public Access EP is perfect for a DJ who misses Blondie and blow and wants to get the cute New Wave girls dancing."
[Edited on 8-11-2003 by draconian]