DJ Me DJ You

What an aptly titled CD. SimpleMachineRock sounds cobbled together from a drum machine here, a bass synth there, lots of vinyl and an occasional sitar. The main members of DJ Me DJ You are Craig Borrell and Ross Harris, and surely they have been assembling their collection of sonics since childhood. SimpleMachineRock takes it all on the road — according to their bio, it was recorded in a moving trailer. All five tracks sport a jazzy, mid-tempo lope. DJ Me DJ You don't try to dazzle with complex beats; they build layer upon layer of melodic flourishes from film and records, forward-and-backward samples, live instruments and lots and lots of tape echo. While others would use a droll vocal sample to provide an entire personality for a track, the sense of fun being all around makes the found vocal blurbs sound far fresher than usual. As well, every track features the cheesiest of beatbox rhythms holding things down in the grand Lee Perry tradition. These folks are comfortable improvising with technology. Would it be as fun if the CD were longer than 20 minutes? I'd like to find out, but SimpleMachineRock stands on its own.