Review of CSM’s IDWIW
The new album by CSM “I Do What I Want” is an assaultive trip through a landscape littered with musical and literary references that not everyone will get. But if you do get even some of the references, you will chortle with nerd-core glee as they roll along beside you.
A collection of tracks she’s made over the last five or so years, they point to a deep divide between the more conventional fusion experiments of her previous album “Collaborator” and this new, more brutal direction.
The title track “Don’t Touch This (I Do What I Want)” is a collaboration with her daughter Ella Romancito, and uses one of her favorite remix tactics – sprinkling the mix with spoken word from movies or pop culture references. This time it’s an audio clip from freesound.org that is a spoof of old sci-fi Saturday movies. “Don’t touch this – we’re doing something important!” snarled with the self-important righteousness of a 1950s mad scientist in mid-hissy-fit. But, as we can hear, she does what she wants. Which makes us speculate that her fingerprints are all over this album, and we’re right.
Each subsequent track grabs us by the scruff of the neck and pulls us through a musical and pop-culture reference cross-country trip with stops in X-File territory, William Gibson cyber-punk novels, earthquakes and Eno, the poster-boy for Electronica in all of us Boomers who like our music with a little more aural diversity.
The album is free, for the most part. There are two songs with a $1 download fee. If you like art with your music or if you’re interested in hearing something far different than what you might be expecting to hear, this is an album for you. – Jack Avery
Review comment for IDWIW – A seamless collage of sound and music from track. Very enjoyable. Not wallpaper. More like a vista. – John Shourt
Review comment for Transport to Your Heart – I believe I’ve told you before, but to reiterate — I love your musical sensibility. I love how well placed the delicate drops are against the heavy beat. Great arrangement and fantastic sound. Excellent work CSM! bravo! – SackJo22
Review comment for Make It Stop – In the headphones with this mix. In bed. I closed my eyes. I was standing on the steps in Union Sq. watching a time lapse dream unfold, I smoked a cigarette and scrolled through my text messages while the brass notes echoed off the skyscrapers. A whole city in this mix, and all the feelings that go with it. 
– spinningmerkaba
Calling Sister Midnight 