Brony Bops

Silva Hound

Silva Hound - Dreamhouse 2021-12-03

I admit my bias in this being the first album I listened to which cemented my conception of "house". You see, house is a feeling that no one can understand really, unless you're deep into the vibe of house. This album is that vibe. It's downtempo AF and with the timeless solo-joint rickety mix where the bass overwhelms and a cymbal brush or two is loud for no reason, there is little discernable bullshit. It's almost mindless in its simplicity, fulfilling the criteria for our conception of house in a workmanlike manner. Old sample with synths, long, and it goes on forever. But it goes deep. The album art is purple, with a purple house, with a purple glow, and purple text, and that's the sound. What a shame the love which drips from each purple pore has been memory holed. There are so, so many terrible albums which deserve to be cleansed from our mortal coil with salt and hellfire, and yet, in the creator's pride against his immature skill, he rebels and steals such love away from us. Get past the bad production, jack your body, and you'll find an honest and untainted expression of house music. Can you feel it?

💯 Hundo. Give Me Your Heart, Moonlight Man, Jesus Won't Let You Down.

Silva Hound - Spitfire Is Performing A Striptease To This EP 2021-12-03

With just a crumb of cleavage do we get some funk, and also the apache break, which is also funky. In terms of house this record is hedonistic. It doesn't break out of its genre's formulae and composition, but its choice of samples evokes less the synthetic DAW-tableism of huge wubs and epic mashlegs that plagued dance albums of its era, and more so, you know, fucking house. Also there are huge wubs later on, in addition to an epic mashleg, but one of those are on a remix and another is on a song that doesn't belong in this album stylistically or conceptually and samples that episode where the three little fillies get their shit pushed in. Plus DAW-tableism on another song, so, what, three duds out of nine and 66% good? That'll do, horse whore. That'll do.

💯 Hundo. Zecora, Berry Punch, Cheerilee.

Silva Hound - Pony Swag Too EP 2021-12-03

A laid-back, boring collection of EDM. While aspiring to some experimentation with driving synths as opposed to merely snares, the composition of each song isn't creative. That I can describe it as EDM, as opposed to a subgenre, is fitting of its vagueness. It's seven songs; I'll list them all. Pony Swag Too is laid-back trap joint with a chill synth but contradicts its aesthetic with long breakdowns. Octavia is a mediocre contribution to the tradition of Beatport producers trying to find The Next Big Sound, in which they discover violins. Bon Bon is perfect. Big beat no-bullshit house where every element matters, coalescing into a tail-end deconstruction of itself. Lyra brings back the bass, in which the sample tells you the base, is in fact, brought back, for three minutes. Flutterrage (Silva Hound Remix), is okay. It freaks some vocals and gets crispy with it, with an injection of the manic juice this EP needs. Spitfire (Silva Hound Remix) chops up the source sample and repeats it a bunch with kick drums. Pony Swag Too (Rave Mix) tries to be tribal but also electronic but really sounds like your basic conception of what "rave" music, or what "rave", is. So there you go.

✂️ Cut. Bon Bon.

Silva Hound - The Royal Wedding EP 2021-12-03

A reinterpretation of the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic two-parter episode series, "A Canterlot Wedding", where a bug creature with cheese legs disguises as the princess of love to seize control of Equestria and cuck a stallion, but with EDM. There are voice samples of characters speaking, always. Structuring the EP around this gimmick dilutes the sonic theme to the narrative theme, and so the sound is inconsistent. Less self-love with house classics and more so Soundcloud producer circa 2012, it's just silly. There are indeed, very brief, moments of sonic intrigue and a bit of glee, but I'd rather them chopped up and distilled to sludge so they may be refined into greater product. I can see why he deleted this one.

✂️ Cut. Clap Your Hooves (And Do A Little Shake!)

Silva Hound - Drinks On Da House 2021-12-03

Less head-tilted-back tequila-in-my-mouth-right-the-fuck-now as so many terrible party albums are, the alcohol-infused mania is obvious. 116 minutes for this "Special Deluxe Edition!!!", 45 of which absorbed by remixes, here's how it works. Each song is a shot, right? And they're named after a little pony. (A recipe is included for each little pony). You take a sample for each song, abuse it, and if you don't like it then chug the next one. Of course this concept leads to sonic variety, of course it does! But the experimentation is limited within each song due to their reliance on its original sample, and the variety comes from the huge runtime's allowance for 16 original songs, choked still by nine remixes. Pony OC EP got away with it because of an all-encompassing palette of carefree coherence, but the lack of overarching sonic theme in this album means it must rely on its variety, which suffers due to its less interesting sampling. There's good shit here, and good fun within the good shit, but good shit isn't the same as holy shit. Pony OC EP was holy shit. This? This is just good.

💯 Hundo. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Rainbow Dash (Voodoopony Remix).

Silva Hound - Equestrian Lover 2021-12-03

Another victim of derivative sampling, this album continues the Silva Hound theme of slathering on drums, bass, synths, cymbals, et al. onto an original sample while still being reliant on that sample for the song's construction to exist at all. This follows the Daft Punk school of house so French it repeats one lyric 144 times, 80 in the radio edit. Whereas Daft Punk brought forth a golden age of lyrical mindlessness to dank beats (Rockafeller Skank, Better Off Alone, later Barbara Streisand), Silva Hound takes inspiration from the Daft instrumentals, and what lyrics exist here (original lyrics, no less!) are set to the same formula of sample plus spices. On the whole, it works. But the core idea, the core reason for being, of each song is exhausted soon into their runtime after it's clear what the song will sample and what will be built upon from there. (Shout out to "Raped and Freezing" mixed under a My Little Pony clip). And what is built upon is often too much, too unsubtle, where the impetus of dance music is buried under excessive additions to a fundamentally good core. The producer must dance with the sample, to enhance it without overtaking it, to match that energy the original provides. Silva Hound respects the old gods, but attempts to overtake them too often. The best results are when those elements of harmony are achieved in a yin-and-yang of innovation and heritage. Even so, there's no production tricks, no gimmicks, no live girls in sexy videos, and very little bullshit. Just dance. Just dance.

💯 Hundo. Carrot Top, Screwball, Roseluck.

Silva Hound - Pony OC EP 2021-12-03

The basic principle of house is it should make you get up and shake your ass. Jesus, this is a winner. It appropriates disco, flips it, freaks it, and lets it rock as samples blast your brain. Its construction is simple, four-on-the-floor don't you know, and it's beautiful. The flames of dance burn through and bounces, the warm glow coming through stereo sound, sparking joy where it once smouldered. There are three guest songs, which don't pull their weight. They miss the subtlety. No, not louder, not gimmicky, just... bliss. That's what you must create, that's the beauty of the beat. Is that the worst thing you can say about an album? The remixes suck? Come on.

🔥 Fire. Butterscotch Sundae, Cherry Twist, Sunset Rose, Sybil Stripes.

Silva Hound - Party Cannon EP 2021-12-03

Electro. Trash. Hell. Yes. The sound on this EP is a weird one, shooting into synthetic soundscapes then crashing down to earth with an overdose of horse voices. The intro contains a backing track composed of heavily distorted Twily, the electronic voices collectively known as "wubs", an interpolation of the theme song, a goddamn guitar solo, and an outro consisting of catchphrases in succession. It's not plunderphonics but it does plunder some phonics, to its decadence. The net effect? It's party time, bitches. The limits of solo production prevents absorption into an eternal, endless soundscape as what this album is really crying out to, and even then the producer's taste would still add in a dose of brony cringe in a non-ironic wearing-invader-zim-hoodies-because-its-2005-not-2020-and-we-didn't-even-know-what-cringe-culture-was-back-then, fashion, but... soul. You know?

💯 Hundo. 20% Faster, Eclipse (w. Thorinair), Junebug.

Silva Hound - (Furry Crap) 2021-12-03

Okay, I'm not even going put up a pretense of this being a review, but you have to see this shit. Silva Hound also did three furry albums, and they are so gloriously cringe, yet so fascinatingly earnest, that they must be preserved for future generations. To my knowledge they were all released in 2009. Furry Habitat is the best one. It starts out with a newscast about furries with some very confused anchors, then goes on to sample clips from that CSI furry episode, which was sort of the community's 9/11. It goes onto a rant from a young teenager regarding said episode. Song titles include Furry Game, Furrytopia, Rule 46, Yiff U, and Heart Inside The Fursuit. Furry infection continues on the incestuous skullfuck with another newscast, "Caramelldansen (Furry Remix)", more rants, the "Imma Let You Finish" clip, and Obama calling Kanye West a jackass. Stare: The Outlook EP is boring, but failing to mention it might set off a cosmic butterfly chain of events which ends up depriving the world temporarily of furry music. Also these albums suck.

💣 Dud.