Cosmo Vitelli - Clean

Cosmo Vitelli’s first full-length album, Clean, asks big questions. Is it possible to “Listen to Images” (track 1)? Can a “Robot Soul” (track 3) really exist? Will life progress if “People Should Think, Machines Should Work” (track 7)? Such philosophical questions demand big answers… Cosmo Vitelli (aka. Benjamin Boguet) employs the wizardry that has become studio technology to explore these paradoxes. Clean develops like a television commercial for a sexual enhancing drug. Concrete communication becomes more and more abstract as the listener is left wondering "what’s the point?" Clean begins the same way a sedated Jamiroquai or Dirty Vegas album might. But as Cosmo Vitelli becomes more comfortable at the studio switchboard, he slowly ditches lyrics for sonic waves, drum machines and electronic loops. But music is being performed with laptops now, is it not? Like most post-modern studio experimentations, Clean is an atmospheric disc. Cosmo Vitelli plays within the boundaries of electronic composition, but he does not push them. On “People Should Think, Machines Should Work,” “Come On, Generation Clone” and “Be Kind to the Machines” Cosmo Vitelli narrates the progression of studio music. Computers are making music now, and we must embrace them. Cosmo Vitelli answers big questions with more questions. Is electro-pop a fad or will it continue to mature into a respected genre? Clean fits nicely into the musical canon popularized by Dirty Vegas and Paul Oakenfold, but it fails to foreshadow what’s next. [www.astralwerks.com]