Digital redemption

Two sides of Fatboy Slim

by Michael Endelman

Who's the real Fatboy Slim? The cheeky funk soul brotha with a taste for strong vodka-and-tonics, Ecstasy-fueled benders, and charmingly stupid big-beat nuggets? Or the aging club kid, newly married thirtysomething, and electronic auteur on a quest to create the perfect post-rave masterpiece? That's the question raised by Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars, Fatboy Slim's third album and the follow-up to his 1998 breakthrough, You've Come a Long Way, Baby (both on Astralwerks). The new album finds Slim (a/k/a Norman Cook) trying to balance his party-animal image with a more mature, reflective, high-minded sensibility -- and it's hard to tell where his heart really rests. The question on most people's minds, though, is much less complicated: is there another "Rockafeller Skank" on Halfway Between?

The simple answer is no. There's nothing as gloriously goofy as that ubiquitous big-beat hip grinder, which became a soundtrack to everything from teen-dream movies to after-work swilling sessions to sweaty house parties. That's not to say that the new album doesn't have any fist-pumping floor fillers. There's plenty of chunky beat science, though Cook has made a concerted effort to expand his big-beat blueprint beyond the Chuck Berry guitar fills, rollicking surf-guitar chords, and crusty funk loops that fueled his 1998 triumph. The result is a decidedly less sunny and accessible collection of tracks. "Ya Mama" cross-breeds aggro-rock riffage, corrosive synth-burn, and Neil Peart drum fills; "Star 69" lays down some hypnotic cussing ("What the fuck, what the fuck, what the fuck . . . ") over a brutal hard-house groove; "Retox" begins with a dive-bombing bass line before settling into an unsettling vocal hook ("Retox a freak in me"). Other new touches include vocal collaborations with Bootsy Collins ("Weapon of Choice") and Macy Gray ("Love Life" and "Demons"). In fact, "Mad Flava," with its multi-tracked hip-hop samples, springy drum loop, and old-school beatbox spittle, is the only track that brings to mind the Fatboy Slim of "Rockafeller Skank."

Elsewhere, Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars does pick up where Cook left off with the second single from You've Come a Long Way, Baby -- the anthemic and touching "Praise You." Maybe it's his marriage to British radio and television personality Zoe Ball or the sight of his thinning pate in the mirror, but Cook takes the nostalgic introspection of "Praise You" and runs with it on the new album, dropping in spoken-word meanderings, chilled-out tempos, gospel piano vamps, and introspective vocals. This attitude adjustment is even audible on the album's first single, "Sunset (Bird of Prey)," a track catchy enough to score on radio even though it's better suited to a consciousness-expanding 'shroom trip than a rowdy kegger. Outfitted with an ominous sample of Jim Morrison reading/singing from his poetry atrocity An American Prayer, "Sunset (Bird of Prey)" is Cook's heavy-handed attempt to achieve emotional depth. It's a tribute to his mastery of the mix -- in this case his use of artfully manipulated trance burbles, ambient keyboard washes, and gentle, syncopated breakbeats -- that he's able to manufacture a genuinely foreboding atmosphere around little more than a snippet of drunken poetic nonsense ("Bird of prey/Flying high/Through the sky").

Cook has a couple more serious tricks up his sleeve, and in the disc's final three cuts -- "Drop the Hate," "Demons," and "Song for Shelter" -- his cheeky smirk is nowhere to be found. His inner club kid takes in a Sunday sermon in "Drop the Hate," which brings together crisp double-time breakbeats, righteous preaching ("Drop the hate/Forgive each other . . . Let's join hands and walk together") sampled from the impassioned Reverend W. Leo Daniels, and wicked bass fluctuations. The next track, "Demons," lowers the tempo and raises tears as Macy Gray and a cooing choir put words to an aging raver's soul searching: "I kinda feel like a cesspool, I wanna be with you/It's my premonition, I better give my heart a listen." And "Song for Shelter" ties up the album's loose musical and emotional strings by lacing together the barrelhouse piano vamp of the first track ("Talking Bout My Baby") with the driving house groove of the second ("Star 69") to create 10 minutes of mostly ambient tones and spoken-word epiphanies about finding transcendence on the dance floor. Meandering, pretentious, and absolutely gorgeous, "Song for Shelter" and the best parts of Halfway Between the Gutter and the Stars reaffirm Cook's uncanny ability to find redemption for himself and his fans with little more than a sampler and an 808 beatbox.