The Answer Is In The Beat

Gnod: Mirror (Rocket Recordings, 2016)

October 30, 2016 at 2:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Gnod are one of the better improv psych acts around. They’re also one of the more unpredictable, switching between folk, drone, noise, Krautrock, etc. at any given moment. This one’s dark, paranoid, heavy, angry, and doomy. There’s shades of early PiL and Swans in here. There’s screaming and subliminal voices. “Sodom & Gomorrah” is an 18-minute crawl down the abyss. The packaging is an actual mirror, so you can stare deep into what’s left of your soul.

Blues Control: OldEnuff2KnoBetta: The Mixtape (self-released, 2016)

October 26, 2016 at 10:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Friends of WCBN Lea Cho and Russ Waterhouse sent over their newest release, this mixtape which is essentially a home-recorded live set, recorded in one take two months ago. From the onset, the new material is way more uptempo than they’ve ever been before, with acid-rock guitar soloing over bouncy techno beats. They revisit “Iron Pigs” from their last album, then they’re back to new spirit-techno jams. “Pillowtalk” is a little slower and has some Gregorian chanting buried under the pianos and wavy echo. “Tangier (1001 Night Mix)” is an extra-fun updated version of the highlight of 2009’s Local Flavor. A must-grab free download available from their website!

CAM: True Or False? LP (Skrat Records, 2016)

October 22, 2016 at 10:47 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Recorded in 2010, this is one of two newly-released albums from a Danish improvisational ensemble who have been around since 2009. Their music could be perceived as a very mutated 21st century breed of improv jazz, one that embraces laptop-era electronic music and a heavy sense of cartoonish absurdity. Glitchy, Schematic-like beats tumble into opener “Kryddereddike” before tense horns settle down, and a Conet Project-like voice mutters in the background. “Ghost” is like an avant jazz-rap track programmed by Mario’s dino friend Yoshi, with fluttering horns contorted and fed through fizzy distortion. “Mirror Confrontations” is a more sinister, sparse spoken word piece. “True or False” channel-surfs through a bunch of samples, ranging from squeaky cartoons to sexual narratives, and then the brief, thrashy “Coming to America” brings the noise righteously. “Jean Palle” is more of a space drift with some noisy scratching. “Pip Neo” is a scratchy, sloppy mess, and then it crashes into the glitch burst of “Rock’n’roll”. “Radioaktive Nisser” is another drifty one, and then “Jimpster” is a flashback to the frantic late ’90s drill’n’bass days, but with more of a spacey jazz aura. “Solen i sækken” starts out slowly, but eventually scraps and shreds accumulate and it ends up a droned-out glitchy squally. Fans of Supersilent should take note. Available digitally on Bandcamp.

Modality: Under the Shadow of This Red Rock 2LP (House of Watts, 2016)

October 22, 2016 at 9:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

WCBN last heard from Modality a few years ago, when they released the elegant, eclectic Particle City. Since then, they’ve put out some limited tapes and played a bunch of gigs around the country. The members live in three different cities in Montana and Vermont, and they practice weekly via the internet. Judging by this sprawling double LP, their ESP is strong enough to connect through pretty much any distance. The first side is taken up by “Rarefied Airwaves”, which starts out as a vast drone featuring guitars and synths which effortlessly meld together. After a brief pause, a drum rhythm works up, and everything becomes fuller and more connected. It never really gets heavy, but there’s some electric violin streaks which appear like particularly sharp flashes of light. And then it all ends with an acoustic comedown. “Bullfrog Boyman” is somewhat twangy and rustic, with stream-of-consciousness spaced-out ranting over a hobbling, hypnotic rhythm and more ecstatic violin and guitar alchemy. “Curtis’ Music Hall” is more electronic and cosmic, with Berlin school synth arpeggios and a seriously beautiful violin melody. It immediately heads straight into a deep bliss area and doesn’t want to leave, until it finally disappears after 9 minutes. Side C (“I Will Show You Fear in a Handful of Dust”) starts out with a silly computer voice before launching into a locked drum groove and synth arpeggios which explore the heavier side of Krautrock. Vocals make scant appearances, but don’t take the lead. The rhythm falls out, and we’re left scrambling in space, and it feels fizzy, strange, and exciting. Then the pulsing synth comes back, and then the drums. It gets gradually more wasted. The final side (“The Savage Seas of Krül”) opens with loud guitar shredding, then goes through some very dense, multi-dimensional fields of sound, waving and washing and encompassing everything you see, hear, and feel. (Assuming you’re playing it as loud as humanly possible, which is by all means how you should be listening to this record.) It gets thick and sludgy, and there’s slowed-down voices echoing out from the void, and drums struggling to not get bogged down. And then it all converges into a truly wonderful final section, ending a magnificent album. Free download at Bandcamp.

Friendships: Nullarbor 1988-1989 (Mansion Records/Dot Dash Recordings/Remote Control Records, 2016)

October 16, 2016 at 6:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Friendships are an Australian duo who make dark, punishing, paranoid music which embraces jungle, grime, ragga, R&B, and spoken word. All of the tracks on this album are wildly different from each other, but it all holds together, and it’s incredibly exciting and eye-opening. “Big Farm in the Sky” and “Paradise” are jungle tracks with heavy bass and insistent breakbeats, and they’re both astounding. “Purebred Dogs” is a hyperspeed garage/grime track, while “Pedal to the Metal” is more of a club-focused track with Latin and Middle Eastern influences. “Spit/Flesh/Splinter” alternates between vulnerable R&B and harsher industrial textures, and it’s got “Ha” stabs. “Jerramungup 1988” is a spoken word interlude which leads up to “When I Feel Like Killing I Murder”, a dubstep-ish track which hinges around the last few lines of the previous track. “Move (Fast)” adds ragga vocals to the pummeling beats, and after “O.O.O. (Eat Your Flesh)” the album gets more distant and abstract. Following another spoken word piece, there’s the aggressive drum workout “The Roof” and the album ends with a detached piano drone called “Keep Smiling at Me Like That and You’ll Be Picking Your Teeth Up Out of the Gutter”. An absolutely deadly album, and probably the biggest surprise of the month, if not the last few.

starRo: Monday (self-released, 2016)

October 16, 2016 at 5:36 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I saw starRo at SXSW a couple years ago at an outdoor show with Giraffage, and his proficiency at sample-chopping made for an astouding set. I haven’t listened to any of his recordings until now, and at this point he’s gone beyond simple beatmaking to writing fully-fledged pop songs. Almost every song here has a guest vocalist, and they cover a wide range. Opener “A New Day” is one of the few tracks without guests, and it showcases starRo’s abilities for Prefuse-style sample glitchery, but the other tracks are a bit more smoothed out and R&B-sounding. “Runaway” is an easy standout, with excellent vocals by Joyce Wrice and just a bit of contemporary electronic production weirdness. Of the dancier tracks, “I Wish” is kind of like a family-sanitized version of The Weeknd, and “My Oh My” (with Machinedrum collaborator Jesse Boykins III) is more Disclosuresque. “Can’t Take It Back” and “Do You Still Want Me” are a bit more downtempo with pretty straightforward, pleading lyrics. “Yams” is pretty silly and gets really annoying really fast, but songs like “Kiss Kiss” are more affecting and the slow, whispery “Song For Me” winds things down nicely. Available on Bandcamp.

Tay Sean: Leavings (Homeskillet, 2016)

October 16, 2016 at 4:36 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Seattle-based producer/vocalist Tay Sean is one of the founding members of hip-hop collective Cloud Nice and the group Kingdom Crumbs, and Leavings is his debut solo effort. His brand of spacey, futuristic hip-hop often comes close to the orbit of nu-jazz or broken or beat, dipping into neo-soul with the Badu-esque “Um Tryin”. He does rap, but his voice is often covered in trippy echo or other effects, and it seems like the vocals are just one small part of what’s going on here. Very off kilter and exploratory, with unconventional rhythms and song structures, but still very easy to get into. Lots of scorching guitars, some video game sound effects, and some excellent beatwork, especially on the drum’n’bass-leaning “Pisces Twilight”. Mostly very hopeful and optimistic, but the self-explanatory “FML” reflects the confusion and disappointment of everyday life. It’s nearly impossible to not compare this artist to Shabazz Palaces, but I think this album reaches toward a much different star, and I’m way more into it. Preview/purchase at Bandcamp.