Kumquat's 2007 album found Fred Church again having fun with the province of sample-based dance experimentation, sometimes in the most calm or melancholy of ways. "Herbert Hoover" features crackling samples of, presumably, the president in question, speaking of the threat of war and death while loops of acoustic guitar and beats play below. In general, Kumquat's songs do feel like just that: songs, as opposed to constructions of open-ended experiments or audio theater. The music often feels like a blend of lush Top 40 experiments from the '80s intermingled with the breakbeat obsessions familiar from the late '90s as alternative came to grips with hip-hop's dominance, yet given a further, different spin via Church's own obsessions. Thus the voice extolling various cooking ingredients on "About My Spices" is cut to the flow of the gentle beat rather than completely transmogrified, while the traded-off boy and man voices on "We Are the Aliens," along with the vocals, make for a funny rather than creepy exercise. There's also a nice bit of self-referencing with "Big Honking Radio," as a voice spells out "Big Kumquat" while the band name gets cited as an instrument.
- allmusic.com Sometimes amid all the beats, samples and rhythmic madness, the sense of fun gets lost. In swoops the artist known as Kumquat to save the day. Kumquat’s tunes are cut-and-paste affairs reminiscent of early Meat Beat, EBN or Coldcut’s better moments. Kumquat keeps it upbeat and often honestly funny, avoiding the political rambles or sheer randomness that can sometimes bog down sample-heavy music. Instead, he offers a wide palette of sound: “Proboscis” melds an 80’s style guitar riff, of all things, with the voice of some poor guy confused as to which dimension he’s in for pure Reagan-era flashback delight. Top tunes here are “The Lawn Is Gonna Die,” which matches a Bootsy Collins style bounce to the great title, and the sinister dwarf marching chant “Everyone Is Afraid of Clowns.” A well thought out set of tunes rounded out by nice packaging and a spot-the-sample game on Kumquat’s website. Kudos to Kumquat for brightening everyone’s day. - Grooves Magazine A sample-delica transmission from the Big Kumquat himself, this self-titled, self-produced self-released disc is a dizzying journey into the mind of a man with a mission. A mission to rescue all those crappy albums and weird-ass videotapes, movies and TV shows of the last thirty years from total obscurity. By slicing, dicing, snipping and tripping, Kumquat has turned out nine tracks that boggle the mind. I’ve had this disc for a couple of months now and still haven’t gotten my head wrapped around it. I still haven’t decided, well, I haven’t decided anything about this disc really, but I do know this: Fred is out to warp my brain. He’s trying to make me a little Kumquat. One of his Kumquat soldiers. He’s trying to re-program me with his loops and endlessly repeating sound bites. “Circle, star, circle, star.” See? It’s starting to get noticeable. I’m starting to get a bit soft around the edges. I’m starting to flinch when Ronald McDonald appears on my TV screen. I’m starting one sentence and ending with another. Although it can be argued I had that problem before I started listening to this disc. The first foray into the realm of the Kumquat is a blitzkrieg of looped samples, IDM-styled beats, and madcap shenanigans of a man with a hyper-developed attentiveness to minutiae. I say that as a good thing. To consider otherwise is a frightening prospect. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go listen to the "Kumquat Manifesto" again. It's been too long since my last injection... - Earpollution.com The first one “Circle Stars” is one of the best - it's light, sweet, fun 'n funky. A woman's voice, like a kindly teacher, intones names of shapes while neat acid sweeps, strings, chill beats, bells and such keep the heads nodding. “In the Wonderful World of Science” has funky acid, funny samples, some cuteness, great drummins, xylophones and other sounds. “The Windmills The Fairies”' is very funky 'n groovey in a chill kinda way…it's got lots of neat German vox samples. “The Lawn is Gonna Die” is kinda weird 'n fun jazzy music and voices set against a neat downbeat with nice piano, twinklings, percussion, horns, and acid. “Gradually Expanding Rutabaga” is neat! Acid-rock…spacey, funky, chill and wild! “Everyone is afraid of Clowns” is downbeat, ala Trip Hop, but lots of fun, "dum dum dum dum dum"…there's a great old-time organ, neat voices, a scratchy rekkid sound and strings. Other tracks have a guitar driven space-rock sound, some 70's loungey rock, groovy funk, and lots and lots of amusing sounds and voices…definitely something here will catch yer ear, so seek it out! - The Technotic Times Kumquat turns back the clock and turns in a pleasant surprise of a debut album. Sounding somewhere between 80’s new wave and Art of Noise, Kumquat is light, clever, danceable, and most of all fun. It reminds me of when I was a youth and I enjoyed eating that proto food, Fun Dip. Fun Dip being the small white stick made almost entirely of sugar that came in a package along with five pouches of different flavored…um sugars. You would then proceed to lick the stick and then dip it into one of the pouches according to your preferred flavor of the moment and proceed to have fun. While eating Fun Dip you would get completely lost in the Fun Dip world of choosing a flavor and basically getting extremely wired on pure sugar. You would then bounce around enjoying the sugar high before diving in for another fun dip. So to reiterate my point, Kumquat is much like the fun dip. It’s five pouches contain the following: 1. acid laced bass funk You get liberal doses of each dip with perhaps a little extra of dip number five. When you put it all together you get an infectious blend of very addictive grooves, disguised under some sugary sweet psychedelia. Most of the tracks are fairly short but amazingly manage to cover some varied terrain, while maintaining a similar sound and theme. They also manage to stick in your head much like the sugar, sticking to the dipstick. Sound confusing? Sure. Addictive? Definitely. In fact you may find yourself needing to return to it like a quick sugar fix. One thing is certain though. It is guaranteed to put a smile on your face. - The Skinny |