Uno Maas, Por Favor

Timo Maas : Loud

Release Date : March 2002

Tracklisting: (Bolded songs are ones I consider to be the highlights.)

01. Help Me (Featuring Kelis) (4:40)
02. Manga (6:24)
03. Hash Driven (2:58)
04. Shifter (Featuring MC Chickaboo) (5:35)
05. Hard Life (4:26)
06. That's How I've Been Dancin' (Featuring Martin Bettinghaus) (4:04)
07. We Are Nothing (2:24)
08. Old School Vibes (6:34)
09. O.C.B. (5:18)
10. To Get Down (3:32)
11. Ubik (The Breakz) (Featuring Martin Bettinghaus) (3:17)
12. Like Love (7:07)
13. Caravan (Featuring Finley Quaye) (5:06)
14. Bad Days (4:13)

There is a Hidden Bonus Track in the final track coming out at about 5:33 and you get a so-so remix of To Get Down, oh well.

Hailing from Dusseldorf, Germany and claiming to have worked as a DJ since 16 Timo Maas is a purveyor of what he calls 'percussive wet funk'.
Polishing the singles for everyone from Madonna to Fatboy Slim he has, what I consider to be, a very good grip on what is termed modern dance music.

His last non-single oriented albums consisted of an early retrospective Music for the Maases from October 2000 and Connected a mix album from March 2001.

Now some folks have determined this debut album as too diverse and confusing, they complain it does not follow his previous work in Trance, yet I see it as his attempt to provide the type of diversity and fun you would get from listening to a DJ mixed cd.
I see this as Timo Mass trying to provide a party feel to an all-original full-length album instead of playing other peoples music.
Go Timo, it's all you baby!

Timo Maas shows us his chops in what I consider a multi-textured genre-juggling attempt to straddle Garage, Funk and Techno while pushing in a more mainstream direction.

Help Me

Not one of the highlights of this album but I have to go over this unique tune.
Timo comes out of nowhere cleverly borrowing spacey horns and a Theremin of all things from the fifties sci-fi thriller "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Talk about catching peoples attention!
Otherwise his funky signature bass line runs through this opening, as usual, with the current Trance diva Kelis bringing on some unfortunately uninspired vocals. Too bad.

Shifter

The MC Chickaboo vocals on this track provide a surreal quality here (Think Nina Hagen goes to Jamaica). Primo? Ya Maaan, U want 2 say somtin bout it?
The mellow rap becomes engulfed in a deep pool of liquid space funk with a pulsating electro bass riff.

That's How I've Been Dancin'

Definitely tongue in cheek with major nods to the early feel of 70's Disco.
Funkadelic cowbells play with grunge based 90's sounds, phat beats and rolling pianos.
Martin Bettinghaus provides the, white polyester suit, vocals to further the nice seventies influenced feel of this tune.

Old School Vibes

Timo Maas rules on this instrumental cutting up the all the usual Trance riffs and melodramatic chord progressions which in other hands would be boring clichés and making them into a Techno-Trance induced mayhem complete with a chunky bass, and big dive-bombing synths.

To Get Down

Remember Dirty Vegas had that Mitsubishi commercial song.
Well here is a better take on that same sound.
The all time peak on this album in my opinion, this single took England by storm earlier this year.
The jangle of guitars starts us into Phil Barnes' vocals which provides a Techno-stomp chorus.
We are talking full fist-pumping mode here!
A true example of the 'percussive wet funk' Timo Maas is so proud of.

If you love this tune do a little searching on the Amazon German site for the cd single.
The best remix I have heard is the full 5 minutes of pure Timo Maas gold called To Get Down (Full Vocal Version) (5:10)
Released 2001 in Germany on the Perfecto label ASIN: B00005U5OS

http://www.amazon.de/

It is well worth the effort.

Ubik (The Breakz)

Reworked From an earlier single that came out September 2000.
Here again Martin Bettinghaus provides the vocals in a more electronic influenced revamp of this tune which now seems closer in feel to Praga Khan or Prodigy.
Timo Maas is still top in his game and pulls this single in a whole different direction, nice work.

So in the end we wind up with seventy-plus minutes of spacey, dirty sounding, funky tunes falling into both good and bad.
In my mind it really is the fun and playfulness of this album that shines through and makes it, despite the flaws, a successful party playing, shake your booty, good time.