The Answer Is In The Beat

Solypsis megapost

March 5, 2017 at 7:12 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

I posted about a Solypsis tape last year after I saw him in Ann Arbor. He releases way too much music to keep track of, but a few of his recent recordings have caught my attention. Smoke Signals was one of two albums he released on Component last year. This one is focused on his techno side, with many tracks having upfront 4/4 beats which slowly become layered with noise and glitch. Other tracks are more fractured and blown out, eventually becoming more deconstructed and pulverized. There’s a few bits of industrial cyber-hip-hop, and lots of scorching noise techno. It’s an hour and a half long, and lots of the tracks go on for a while, so some of it feels like live jams. Some mindblowing feedback and flanging and other fucked up effects on tracks like “Painfully Tight”. So much to process, but yeah, it’s worth it.
Noise Is Natural appeared on TRASHFUCK, and unsurprisingly, it is a huge, heavy slab of harsh noise. The album contains a lot of tracks that are under 2 minutes, but it’s actually the longer ones that leave a greater impression. Opener “Alone Time” has such a full, all-encompassing sound, and it moves around in all directions. And it’s just so huge and full-sounding. Other tracks are more lo-fi and transistor-y, so they don’t have quite the same impact. Then others like “The Shed” are more fragmented and seem to have a few things going on at once.
Solypsis also released a split album with Catdog called Resisting Arrest, on Legs Akimbo Records. The Solypsis tracks have more big, nasty, dirty beats and noise crunching. Some of it’s a bit closer to hardcore/gabber, but still somewhat streamlined in a way. “Millions of Splinters” sounds like just that, in the most overwhelming way possible. Catdog’s tracks take up the second half of this album, and they are absolutely the best material I’ve heard by him. Just a really solid mix of raggacore, atmospheric jungle, and breakcore obliteration. Tracks like “Who Dem Wan Sound” just bomb everything out of the sky.