The Answer Is In The Beat

Cylob: Inflatable Hope 12″ EP (Power Vacuum, 2015)

July 30, 2015 at 9:57 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Rephlex is apparently defunct now, but IDM’s hardcore elite will never go away. Cylob’s been releasing music on his own label since 2007 anyway, and this his second release for Power Vacuum. As one might expect, it’s full of squirming, elastic synth sounds and jittery beats. Some of it sounds like LFO wired on a bit too much caffeine, other times it’s splattery electro. “Rosetta” is the EP’s “pretty” track, and even that seems to hyperventilate with the beats getting more skittery as the track progresses. The track title “Pulp the Bass” tells you what you’re in for, as it seems to squeeze as much digital juice out of the spasmodic bass sounds as possible. These are grotesque, bizarre creations that are simply too weird and mutated to work on any sane dance floor, and that’s exactly why they’re prime IDM.

Matilde Davoli: I’m Calling You From My Dreams (Loyal To Your Dreams, 2015)

July 30, 2015 at 9:45 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Kinda chillwave dreampop stuff. “#1” is like a chillwave version of some Dark Side Of The Moon melodies (just try singing “Us & Them” along with the beginning). “Realize” is like chill-surfguitar-Moroder (I’m thinking the “Call Me” rhythm). Other songs do the kind of hushed Beach House thing. “Dust” and “I’m Calling You From My Dreams” do big drums and epic synth melodies. “Summer Ending” is a pleasant light synth chillwave beat thing, it’s nice and summery. Last track is kind of snoozy but it’s short. Decent overall.

The Hussy: Galore (Southpaw, 2015)

July 30, 2015 at 9:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Male/female garage rock duo from Madison, WI. Not as back-to-basics as you might expect for a garage rock duo, there’s acoustic guitars and shakers and synths and other layered instruments. “Channeling Spiral Stairs” is a straight-up Pavement homage with violin for some reason, and it actually works really well. “Darkness” also has violin and it’s kind of slower and gothier, and that works surprisingly well too. Most of this band’s songs are pretty short (a minute or two long, except “My Bad” which is over 4) so they try out an idea and move on to the next one and I like that.

/f: pq:c (self-released, 2015)

July 22, 2015 at 11:38 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

A sequel to one of last year’s best albums (with easily one of the best album covers of all time), this is the third (as far as I know) installment of the circuit-fried glitch project of the artist otherwise known as Susan Balmar. This one’s on a different Bandcamp than the previous two, the comprehensibility-is-far-beside-the-point Psalmus Diuersae. The label has a penchant for removing material or changing track or release or artist titles without warning (the second /f album seemed to only be up for a few days before disappearing), and of course there’s no way to tell who’s actually creating any of these sounds. Most of the sounds are fascinating, though, going beyond the usual eccojam-muzak cliches of vaporwave into something that sounds more futuristic and, well, not just like taking smooth jazz and slowing it down without altering it much. /pq:c covers a nice range from MIDI lullabys to scrambling glitch collages to Schematic-y IDM to slivers of E2-E4-like melodies. I continue to be totally in awe of this project, I think whoever this artist is, they’re one of the best ones doing crazy glitch stuff right now. Available on Bandcamp.

Dead Hands On A Piano: Walking Around (Placenta, 2015)

July 22, 2015 at 11:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This one immediately caught my attention because of the artist name, but the music is even way better than that. Really noisy, glitchy, messy, distorted, tape-damaged minimal-synth/industrial with Krautrock rhythms and ambient passages. It’s amorphous and unpredictable and it’s beyond awesome. I can’t wait to hear more from this artist. A must-download (and it’s free!) from Placenta Recordings.

Fabio Perletta: Unseed (Arboretum, 2015)

July 22, 2015 at 10:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This is the type of hypnotic ambient glitch album that immediately catches my attention as soon as it begins (Fourcolor also comes to mind). It seems like it’s standing still but it’s always flickering and slowly weaving in and out of soothing textures and droning notes. There’s natural recordings, it sounds like there’s some dripping or flowing water and the sounds of seeds (the physical CD comes packaged with Japanese cherry tree seeds) but it’s the drones and glitches that hook me. This whole album is seriously lovely.