Person: Entitled
Echelon Productions

Person: Business Class EP
Echelon Productions

Person's Entitled stylishly merges the indie-rock bravado of LCD Soundsystem with Prince-styled funk-soul and glitch-pop treatments. Though Person's a trio, the album's primarily the brainchild of Miguel Lacsamana (Stamen & Pistils, Metropolitan) and it largely succeeds as a fresh and sexy amalgam of dance rock, electro, funk, and hip-hop. Entitled centers on lyrical themes of sexual and romantic longing (one-night stands,) while it sonically approximates a scenic guided tour through current electronic styles: the spirit of Portishead possesses the slithering opener “Fall of Perception” (which also receives a production boost from Ghostly and Melodic denizen Outputmessage aka Bernard Farley), for example, while “Pharisee Pride” ‘borrows' MIA's ‘galang' beats.

Throbbing beats, bass lines, and squealing synths burn through raucous cuts like “Who Do You Want Me to Be?” and “New Monogamy,” and glitchy edits and click-hop beats give “Valid Concerns” boom-bap punch. The most memorable song is the scathing “You Ain't Hot” which tears a strip off of underage poseurs who confuse club appearances with artistic credibility (“Acting like a porno flick / Shit, that don't make you hot”). The tune's bass-heavy electro-funk and cheeky Prince-styled falsetto would be perfect radio fodder were it not for the risqué lyrics. Much of the album's dominated by filthy funk grooves but ends a little less aggressively with “Business Class,” an inviting slice of smooth glitch-soul that's darkened by acerbic romantic cynicism.

Person devotees seduced by the charms of that cut in particular shouldn't overlook the group's Business Class EP whose nondescript cardboard cover hides a delicious 12-inch slab of cherry-coloured vinyl. Naturally, the album version appears here too but it's complemented by the contributions of remixers Spank Rock and Alex XXXchange who get the tune grooving onto the dancefloor in both vocal and instrumental versions. The latter's less a filler cut than one might expect; with the vocals removed, the version's slippery hip-hop beats, electro-synth flourishes, and strings(!) stand forth more prominently, plus some nice vocal counterpoint emerges during the nice coda. Outputmessage returns here too with an incendiary dance mix of “Pharisee Pride” that pushes the original's swinging rhythms in the direction of electro and techno.

May 2007