Artist: MFAG
Title: Love Is The Message
Label: Alternative Route
By: Nick Bower | 28 October 2003
Tracklist:

• A1: House Of Flavor Mix
• B1: Late Night Version
• B2: Love Is...

MFAG "Love Is The Message"

New York DJ and producer Adam Goldstone has had a colourful, varied and slightly bizarre career to date. He's run trippy ambient club the 'Departure Lounge', teamed up with Rob Rives in the mid 90's to form 'Superstars Of Rock' (who have released on Stress and Related Recordings) and he's put out a particularly eclectic album for Nuphonic in 2001. These are to name but a few of the many projects Goldstone has been involved in. Fast forward to 2003 and he adopts the AKA 'MFAG' to deliver the next chapter in the Adam Goldstone story - 'Love Is The Message'.

On first listen its nice to hear that some of the tongue-in-cheek fun is still alive and well within the dance music scene. To say 'Love Is The Message' is a quirky number would be an understatement! However, muscling in at nearly 11 minutes long, 'Love Is The Message' (House Of Flavor Mix) is a hefty chunk of a track, by no means.

The 'House Of Flavor Mix' gets the ball rolling with pretty much everything bar the kitchen sink! A skippy beat is partnered by a stabby brass sound, a harsh sounding vocodered voice and a whole mish-mash of cowbells and other percussion. This collection of sounds build to a peak before all dropping away and a lush swirling synth line twirls around, whilst the shuffled beat ploughs on, the ringing and quite cold vocal chopping in now and again. The 'House Of Flavor Mix' is certainly a rather perculiar tasting dish!

The cowbell theme is carried through to MFAG's 'Late-Night Version' – seemingly a dub of the 'House Of Flavor Mix'. The percussion is brought to the fore and developed, once again with the swirled synths and same beat as the previous mix. Offering a more stripped-down and percussive take on things, initially seems that this version doesn't really deliver much more than the 'House Of Flavor Mix'. However, on subsequent listens you do start to understand what Goldstone has done. By pulling specific sounds out of the original version, such as organ notes and reverbed percussion, he has subtly made more of a feature of these, using less of the 'Speak & Spell' style vocodered vocal.

'Love is...' bowls in with a much heavier snare, yet the same kick and other elements as the first two mixes. Both the synth lines and metallic sounding vocal have been resonated much more heavily though, the addition of a hypnotic bassline giving it a deeper and darker feel. Overall, 'Love Is...' tends to lean more towards more of a late night twisted dance floor feel.

A slightly off-the-wall number, 'Love Is The Message' and its mixes may not be to everyone's taste, perhaps lacking some of the universal appeal of previous Alternative Route tracks. Overall the track plods on in its playful manner, though ultimately you're left with the feeling it hasn't really travelled particularly far. However, one thing's for sure, it does encompass many sounds, staying true to the label's consistent trend of pushing the envelope in terms of genre bending.