The Answer Is In The Beat

HNY: Sacred Fire 7″ (Spleencoffin, 2015)

January 17, 2016 at 5:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I was late to the party with Social Junk, not getting into them until after they broke up, and now it appears that I’ve repeated myself, because former SJ member Heather Nicole Young has retired her solo alias HNY, and this is the moniker’s final release. It is frightening and beautiful. “Sacred Fire” has absolutely charred guitars and percussive pounding, plus layers of haunting, shivering vocals. “Ghost” isn’t as noisy, but it’s still ominous, squirming, and of course spectral. Her vocals are a bit more ethereal and nearly tip into a new dimension of otherworldliness, but then it’s over too quickly.

Warren Michael Defever: Sunship tape (Northern Ashram, 2015)

January 17, 2016 at 5:43 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Some of His Name Is Alive’s limited CDR releases from the past few years have included spacey, cosmic, ambient drone pieces, and I was super excited to hear those and hoped Warren would do more music like that. This tape, recorded under his full name, is exactly what I asked for. Recorded at home as well as during a few performances in Detroit and Hamtramck (which I missed), the tape starts out with spacious piano similar to Harold Budd (whom HNIA performed with in Mexico during the ’90s), then from there it blossoms into a wide, enveloping drone with some slithering bass tones underneath. The second side has more spiraling, fractal prog-rock organ tones, then a much denser, shimmering mix of oozing synths and guitar licks. Halfway through, there’s a switch to a synth sequence which explodes into stereo, then it evolves into several more layers of paths and flourishes. Too mesmerizing to be a simple “relaxation” tape, this is an incredible, engrossing listen. The sun is still in the heart.

Final Cop: Castaway Lakota (Dub Ditch Picnic, 2015)

January 13, 2016 at 10:31 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

German Army seem clearly inspired by early industrial groups like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle, but they tend to inhabit the murkier, more experimental end of the genre. GeAr founder Peter Kris has another project, Final Cop, which is much more aggressive, guitar-heavy, confrontational, and even occasionally (gasp) melodic than his more prolific outfit. Final Cop’s distorted vocals come a lot closer to Skinny Puppy and their legions of followers, and all of the songs hover around a minute or two, giving them a punk-like immediacy, even if they’re generally midtempo. Fiery guitar and fat, buzzing bass guitar smother the cruddy drum machine beats, and the snarled, nearly indecipherable vocals (along with sampled voices on a few tracks) complete their sound. The short, blistering songs are still pretty experimental, this doesn’t come close to sounding like goth club EBM/industrial, and this isn’t the place to look for conventional song structures or hooks either, but it’s still a neat burst of furious, bit-crushed industrial rage.

Ray Sammartano: Through the Chronos Lens (self-released, 2015)

January 13, 2016 at 9:46 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Ray Sammartano’s third album takes his music beyond the space planetarium sounds of his first two, with trippier effects and more drawn out synth drones. These tracks are mostly improvised, but there’s still an enormous amount of care put into their construction, and they’re inventive and surprising. A couple tracks even have echo-immersed vocals, transforming them into dripping 23rd-century space lullabies. At some points, it’s unclear if the music is dissolving into thin air or if a new melody or rhythm is bubbling up through the ether. Sammartano’s shapeless, formless synth explorations get lost in the best way. The album’s artwork couldn’t be more CDBaby-core (there’s even babies on the front cover), but that shouldn’t stop synth-drone fans from checking this out, and some label like Aguirre should press this on snazzy limited double gatefold vinyl. Stream/purchase on Bandcamp.

Infinite Body: Avolition LP (Isounderscore, 2015)

January 11, 2016 at 11:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Out of all the drone/noise artists I was into 5 or 6 years ago, Infinite Body was the one who seemed to make the biggest impact with a handful of releases only to sink without a trace (runner-up: the considerably more prolific Red Electric Rainbow). 2010’s Carve Out The Face Of My God was an exceptional album that tipped harsh noise into stunning, gorgeous melodic ambience. And then, nothing. Finally, he’s re-emerged with this short LP on Isounderscore, which has similarly been out of the game for a few years. The holographic artwork on this LP is out of this world as it is, and then the album’s first track “Slow of Heart” seems to set the album’s cover in motion, with criss-crossing time-stretched noise loops and solemn pianos underneath. Sean McCann mastered this album, and this track definitely has a similar “how the hell does he create these sounds?” quality in common with McCann’s work. “Enlacing” follows, practicing sample surgery with an unsuspecting pop diva and cross-stitching it with a buzzing (yet melodic and rhythmic) blanket of noise. On the second side, “Empyrean” is a shimmering, moonlit stroll with neon pulses and foggy horns. “All Things Made New” starts out with a woozy organ drone (the kind that makes you expect Prince to appear and say “Dearly beloved…”) and from then on it merges into a heavenly chorus-like synth drone. Seriously, I’ve been waiting for this record for 5 years and it doesn’t disappoint in the slightest.

Evil Robot Ted: Hints About the Sick Room tape (Scolex Recordings, 2015)

January 11, 2016 at 10:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Known for running Brokecore Recordings since back in the day and sharing split CD-R’s with artists such as Dental Work, Metal Babble, and Scissor Shock, Evil Robot Ted (John Marra) has been releasing his frantic brand of frantic ambient glitchcore for ages now. This tape on NJ-based Scolex Recordings is a sizeable sampling of his wares, ranging from the extended hip-hop experiment “Instar” to intense breakcore meltdown “Pyramid Materialization” to plenty of smeared ambient washouts. “Identifing a Skeleton as Holy” has a slowed-down, skipping industrial rhythm juxtaposed with a bright, star-like melody which is also riddled with glitches. A lot of the tracks on the B-side are shorter, more disconnected experiments, but “Anhydrobiosis” works up some slippery breakbeats, and “Cara Oculta” is a super gorgeous thing with a saddening melody and a crushed, trudging beat. “Honey Stomach” is sound of your life dripping away while you’re sick in bed drinking 50 cups of tea a day, and then the miasmic “Overkill All Over Again” explains itself. This is an incredible album and I wish I heard it before the beginning of this year so I could’ve included it during my Best of 2015 festivities. Free download on Bandcamp.

John Metcalfe: The Appearance of Colour (Real World, 2015)

January 10, 2016 at 4:50 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Composer and viola player John Metcalfe was in The Durutti Column in the ’80s, and since then he’s been a renowned orchestral arranger for artists such as Morrissey, Blur, Peter Gabriel, and many others. This album appears on Gabriel’s Real World label, and it’s a collision of modern classical and electronic music, with skittering drum’n’bass beats, acoustic double bass, and light operatic vocals. The album’s first track “Sun” is a 20-minute suite, and the closing title track is 16 minutes, so he’s clearly going for epic statements here. The songs in the middle are around 2-6 minutes, and “Sycamore” is probably the best song to start with (and it has the heaviest drum’n’bass influence on the album). “Just Let Go” features vocalist Natasha Khan and dips into trip-hop/Purity Ring territory, but in a smoothed out acoustic/orchestral way. Some of the other shorter tracks are more purely acoustic/orchestral, while “Gold, Green” veers a little closer to smooth jazz territory, but it’s not that bad. A pretty unconventional album, it seems quite high-brow but it still embraces modern styles and it’s worth checking out.

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch: Like Water Through the Sand (130701, 2015)

January 8, 2016 at 7:15 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

French pianist/composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch’s first non-soundtrack album is a stunning audio suite which blends her vibrant piano playing with string quartet and electronics. “The Sum of Our Flaws” is all graceful, melodic pianos with a hint of cricket-like chirping in the background. “Tulsi” begins with a rainfall of plucked strings which are arranged into a slowly growing rhythm, developing softly pounding drums and synths. “Cotidal Lines” places the mournful-sounding string quartet up front and center, submerging piano in the background, while “Hands Closed Together” is nearly all piano, beginning calmly and rising in tempo in its second half. “Vestiges” begins with more distant-sounding piano, sounding fuller as the strings come in. “Persephone” and “Scale of Volatility” are both framed by electronic pulses, with the latter being faintly kissed by dubby electronic manipulation. “Six of Swords” seems like an ecstatic variation on the previous song’s piano melody. “Sublimation” returns to weepy strings, and the album ends with the calm, reflective “Strelka”. Clocking in at only 39 minutes, the album is a compact, easily enjoyable listen.