Say Goodbye to Useless

Album Review

“I Would Like,” the opening track on Say Goodbye to Useless, might give one the wrong impression with its operatic style, but it soon evolves into the thumping second song, “I Want,” to make it clear that Deru is a electronic/hip-hop/IDM producer in the ranks of Flying Lotus or Odd Nosdam. Considering that Benjamin Wynn (aka Deru) also works as a co-owner of The Track Team, a music and sound company that has done spots for Nike, Honda, and Samsung, as well as work for Nickelodeon’s animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender, his expertise is editing sound waves, and it shows. His beat-chopping is precise, with kicks, snares, and hi-hats manipulated into blips, chirps, and snaps, snipped down to the millisecond. While the album’s fractured breakbeats, micro-chimes, and throbbing basslines are the focal point, a symphonic feel also shines throughout to provide an overall moody but calming atmosphere. His background writing scores for the Paris Opera Ballet Company comes in handy here, as he backdrops digital polyrhythms with ethereal strings and woodwinds to make "Hello," "Walk," and "Fadeaway" even more provocative. Out of all of Deru’s previous outings with Ghostly International, Merck, Neo Oija, and Mille Plateaux, this is his most focused work and his most balanced marriage of cinematic compositions and big beats.