The Answer Is In The Beat

S Transporter: s/t EP (Portage Garage Sounds, 2019)

November 9, 2019 at 10:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The four tracks on this EP were developed over the course of several years throughout several sessions in San Francisco and Detroit. Ryan Spencer and Izaak S initially recorded demos sometime around 2015, and after rediscovering them and playing them at Spencer and Shigeto’s Monday Is The New Monday weekly, they developed the tracks further. “S Transporter 1” is a mutant electro track which can hardly stop fidgeting, filled with vinyl swerves and count-offs. Anya Ghiorzi joins in for “S Transporter 2”, a sleazy robo-boogie joint with a vaguely goth air. “S Transporter” is a buoyant tropical island adventure underpinned by spoken narrations which are hard to make out unless you turn it up and concentrate, but you’ll probably be too busy dancing to worry about listening to the words. “S Transporter 4” is breezy and summery but far from simply laid back, with lots of simmering synths surrounding the swaying beats and guitars.

Pedestrian Deposit: Dyers’ Hands (Monorail Trespassing, 2019)

November 8, 2019 at 7:33 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Los Angeles duo Pedestrian Deposit are absolutely unforgettable in concert, producing unremittingly harsh but controlled noise using electronics and self-built instruments constructed of junk metal and wood, including a violin made out of a branch. The few recordings of theirs that I’ve heard do an incredible job at transferring that energy and unpredictability to tape. Dyers’ Hands, like many of their releases, appears on their own Monorail Trespassing, and it’s astounding. “Crow Theory” opens with a minute of delicate plucking before leading into raucous, cut-up noise which thrashes and threatens to combust and burn the house down. “What Can’t Be Given”, however, is a tranquil sea of cello and tape drifting. “Auger” is a more Deathprod-like swarm of electronic drones and feedback, as well as swooping tones generated from something called a string brace. “What Can’t Be Taken” sporadically shifts between disorienting noise bursts and quiet, icy stillness, including sounds literally generated from ice as well as the clanging and scraping of junk metal. The 18-minute “Beneath the Salt” is a mini-symphony for more branch instruments (violin and string bass) as well as cello and electronics, flowing from soft rumbling to deadly noise attacks, ending with a solemn, stirring cello section. Gorgeous, powerful, perception-shaking work.

Spykes & Parashi: Braille License Plates for Sullen Nights 7″ (Radical Documents, 2019)

November 3, 2019 at 6:32 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

John Olsen of Wolf Eyes and Mike Griffin of Burnt Hills produced this 7″ of frigid, shivering electronics and braying, blasted reed-blowing. The press blurb says “the record speed is based on how many days you have not left the house”, but I find that it sounds just fine at 33. Side B is easily my favorite, it’s jazzier but also a thick, murky soup of multi-textural electronics, and it takes your brain to a much more active, swirling-and-sloshing place than side A. Both sides end in locked grooves, and all copies contain unique artwork.

XV: s/t LP (Life Like, 2019)

October 16, 2019 at 10:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Lo-fi trio XV (Claire Cirocco, Emily Roll, Shelley Salant) play short, direct, rudimentary songs which each focus on a limited amount of thoughts, hammer away at them, and then drop them and move on. It’s not aggressive enough to be punk, and it’s amped up enough so that the snare drum constantly vibrates, but it isn’t harsh enough to be noise-rock; it’s abstract, but it’s also very specific. It’s super in-the-moment and raw to the point of being nervous and uncomfortable. A lot of the songs seem like one hook or a few keys words bashed out and repeated several times, but closer listening reveals some more involved, hypnotic arrangements that might not register on first listen. The second side starts out with the nearly free jazz ruckus of “What Did You Do Today?”, which is so manic that one of the channels repeatedly cuts out. Echoed sax playing augments most of the remaining songs, including the patient, interlocking progression of “Feeling” as well as the more jubilant “Hair”, which features the memorable chant “I had a crush on both Aladdin and Jasmine!” The album ends with a brief, unlisted bonus track which is more jumbled and unhinged than the rest of the songs, and it might actually be the best track on the album. Limited to 100 copies, available now from Life Like.