Details
Track Listing
1. Sleep on the Left Side
2. Brimful of Asha
3. Butter the Soul
4. Chocolat
5. We're in Yr Corner
6. Funky Days Are Back Again
7. What Is Happening?
8. When the Light Appears Boy
9. Coming Up
10. Good Shit
11. Good to Be on the Road Back Home
12. It's Indian Tobacco My Friend
13. Candyman
14. State Troopers (Part 1)
15. Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)
Album Notes
Cornershop: Tjinder Singh (vocals, guitar, dholki, DJ); Ben Ayres (guitar, keyboards, tamboura); Anthony Saffery (sitar, harmonium, keyboards); Nick Simms (drums); Peter Bengry (percussion).
Additional personnel: Paula Frazer, Lourdes Belart (vocals); Justin Warfield (rap vocals); Allen Ginsberg (spoken vocals); Robert Buller, E. Johnson, Grace Winder (strings); Ray (flute).
Producers: Tjinder Singh, Dan "The Automator" Nakamura, Daddy Rappaport.
WHEN I WAS BORN FOR THE 7TH TIME, the third album by Cornershop, is like a smiling, sun-lit reprieve amidst the pre-millennium tensions of most cutting-edge, Western pop of the end of the century. While their post-modern bricolage mirrors Beck's appropriation skills, Tjinder Singh and his mates craft an album of multi-cultural rhythms, textures and lyrical references. The one-world/one-groove outlook anticipates the 21st century with a glee born of spiritual and physical contentment, rather than Beck's new-pollution dourness.
To drive home the point of the importance of rhythm for the soul, playful beat-driven tracks are strewn throughout the album. The groovy instrumental "Butter The Soul" pits slacker record-scratching against a sitar to the shouted delight of onlookers. A sampled voice on "What Is Happening" asks the titular question of the situation in the world's capitals while the beat set up by tablas and handclaps suggests a midnight bonfire rally. Singh and the band focus on memories and emotions any listener could identify with, and then personalize and globalize them in one fell swoop.
Industry Reviews
Included in Rolling Stone's Essential Recordings of the 90's.
Rolling Stone (05/13/1999)
Ranked #34 in Spin Magazine's 90 Greatest Albums of the '90s.
Spin (09/01/1999)
Ranked #3 in the Village Voice's 1997 Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll.
Village Voice (02/24/1998)
Ranked #11 on Melody Maker's list of 1997's Albums Of The Year.
Ranked #6 in NME's 1997 Critics' Poll.
4 Stars (out of 5) - ...a cohesive, finely crafted LP in which the last album's low-fi funk expands into low, fat grooves, and Singh's pancultural, anti-racist lyrics become more sophisticated but no less impassioned...
Rolling Stone (08/21/1997)
9 (out of 10) - ...Turning away from the ragged indie rock that dominated Cornership's previous music, Singh now lets the groove be his guide. A third of the tracks here are Mo'Wax--worthy instrumentals--melting pots of chunky beats, Asian drones, oddball samples, and Singh's own turntable doodles...
Spin (09/01/1997)
...The breadth of vision on WHEN I WAS BORN is astonishing. It's a record you can listen to time and time again, one where you'll forever be discovering hidden nuances, more delights.
Melody Maker (09/06/1997)
...Their third album mixes up hip-hop beats, rock guitar, sitars, scratching, alt-country, and Allen Ginsberg, and few bands make this musical Cuisinart so playful, accessible, and friendly... - Rating: B
Entertainment Weekly (09/26/1997)
...a sprawling work that, with it's laidback beats, ear-catching samples and pleasingly anachronistic synth squiggles, sounds more than a little like Beck's ODELAY....a fun, funny and funky good time for all.
Option (11/01/1997)
...The best music nowadays tends to be sound-inclusive, and Cornershop has 'cornered' the market with its percussive/sample-heavy, ethno-global-indie bag that's as fresh as papadum dipped in mint chutney...
Magnet (11/01/1997)
Ranked #1 on Spin's list of the Top 20 Albums Of The Year [1998].
Spin (01/01/1998)
Ranked #68 in Q's 100 Greatest British Albums - ...[An] opus of sardonic neo-Asian disco/rock/hip hop, blending chugging guitars, lazy beats, sitars and lyrics about Bollywood and masturbation...
Q (06/01/2000)
...The breadth of vision on WHEN I WAS BORN is astonishing. It's a record you can listen to time and time again, one where you'll forever be discovering hidden nuances, more delights.
Melody Maker (09/06/1997)
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