The Beneficiaries: The Crystal City Is Alive (Axis, 2020)

September 16, 2020 at 7:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The Beneficiaries: The Crystal City Is Alive

The Beneficiaries is the trio of techno old-schoolers Jeff Mills and Eddie Fowlkes along with Detroit poet, playwright, and performance artist jessica Care moore. As with much of his space-themed full-lengths on Axis, Mills’ productions find him in astral traveling mode, constructing electronic comets and shooting stars for moore’s words to traverse. Speaking of hope for a better tomorrow, she namechecks Octavia Butler, Sun Ra, and Samuel Delany, as well as Juan Atkins’ cosmic cars.
The two Eddie Fowlkes tracks are both lengthy jams with live percussion babbling over the percolating electronics, with moore’s vocals dropped in somewhat dub-like, especially scattered with effects during “The X” (which also features space-gospel organ from Amp Fiddler). “When the Sun Loves You Back” and most of “Star Children of Orion” are swirling Mills instrumentals turning solar energy into electronic sonatas.

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