Dan The Automator Wanna Buy A Monkey? CD

Features tracks produced or remixed by this busy DJ, who is a member of the Gorillaz, Hansome Boy Modeling School & Deltron 3030. Artists include Depeche Mode, Lovage, Sigur Ros, Del la Soul, Air, Tortoise & more. Ultra/Sequence Music.

This is a continuous in-the-mix CD compiled and mixed by Dan The Automator.
Personnel: Encore (vocals); Kid Koala, The X-ecutioners (scratches).
Liner Note Author: Eddie Brannan.
Recording information: D & D Studios; Glue Factory, SF, CA.
Photographer: James Patrick Dawson.
Not just a production genius and the birth name behind a handful of indie/rap masked marvels (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Deltron 3030, Gorillaz), Dan "The Automator" Nakamura is also an excellent DJ. But even after ten years in the hip-hop game (and scores of credits), he'd still never released a mix album until 2002's Wanna Buy a Monkey?. Nakamura proves the wait was worth it, book-ending twin sets of hardcore hip-hop with a middle section comprised of downtempo material like his remix of Air's early classic "Le Soleil Est Pres de Moi" and his own productions of Lovage's "Stroker Ace" and Gorillaz's "Latin Simone." Also including his first credit from 1992 (a single recorded by Black Rob many years before he hooked up with Bad Boy), Wanna Buy a Monkey? shows off Nakamura's ear for a great track as well as his deft turntablist skills. Granted, about half of these were Automator productions or remixes to begin with, but Wanna Buy a Monkey? doesn't just collect a few of his rarer credits, but fits them into one of the best mix albums of the year. ~ John Bush
With all his high-profile alliances, producer/turntablist Dan Nakamura could just as well be known as Dan The Collaborator. Since garnering attention for his distinctive prouction on oddball hip-hop mystic Kool Keith's 1996 release under his Dr. Octagon pseudonym, he's joined in league with everyone from Prince Paul and Del Tha Funkee Homosapien to Damon Albarn and Mike Patten in heralded projects landing all over the musical map such as Deltron 3030, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Lovage and the platinum-selling Gorillaz. Hence, it's rather surprising his own name has graced but one barely noticed EP before 2002's mix CD WANNA BUY A MONKEY?
That the CD takes its name from the sole line uttered by David Letterman in obscure Chris Elliott vehicle CABIN BOY, driven home by Barry White (among others) in a more memorable Oscars sketch, speaks to Dan's ear for the eccentrically appealing, not to mention his affinity for pop culture (peppered throughout his mix). With a similar knack, for his mix CD he mines seemingly disparate genres and finding the perfect thread with which to weave the worlds together into an illuminating aural landscape, comingling brit-shoegazers The Doves and post rock stalwarts Tortoise with french-popsters Air and hip-hop minds Rza, De La Soul and the X-ecutioners for a melange both appealing and enlightening.

Q (6/02, p.126) - 3 stars out of 5 - "...It's all good fun, sandwiching a mellow midsection between two hunks of left-of-centre hip hop. En route [Nakamura] showcases his own quirky, sci-fi flavoured studio work..."
NME (Magazine) (5/4/02, p.36) - 8 out of 10 - "...If the DJ's art is to unite unlikely musical party guests, The Automator is a fine and generous host...Dan is taking the throne as the RZA of thr rucksack..."