July 10, 2016 at 9:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Failed Flowers: self-titled 1-sided LP
Following 2 years and a slight lineup change since their demo tape, as well as Fred Thomas’ move to Montreal, Failed Flowers finally make their vinyl debut with this purple marbled 1-sided LP. What began as a spontaneous attempt to start a twee punk band has turned into a masterful indie pop outfit. These songs are short, but they’re very considered and thought out, and they pack a lot of words and sentiments (just look at the lyric sheet) without sounding like they’re overstuffed. Like the first Rebel Kind album, this is a 1-sided LP which feels like it’s exactly the right length, not something that should’ve been chopped down into a 7″ or something that didn’t have enough ideas for a full 2 sides. It gets everything out in an appropriate amount of times, the songs are sharp and powerful and never longer than they need to be, and then it’s done. Hear/buy it now at
Bandcamp.
July 4, 2016 at 4:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Germ Class: self-titled tape
German Army can be incredibly hard to keep track of, with dozens of tapes as well as side projects. A lot of these get pretty demanding for the listener, musically, but Germ Class seems to be a bit more accessible. The tape insert says it also includes members of Dunes (who I’m not familiar with), and a lot of the (short) songs on this tape have slow, uncluttered, but sometimes bassy drum machine beats, some drifting guitars and vocals, and lots of space. There’s some delay clouds, and some mysterious muttering voices, but overall this seems closer to Seefeel than GeAr’s Residents/CabVolt-ish haunted industrial. It’s easy to lose track of time listening to this, even though it’s not very long.
July 4, 2016 at 4:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment
Morten_HD: Naphtha tape
I downloaded this off
Bandcamp a while ago, but when I got the actual tape, I was delighted that it’s actually way longer than the download version (which is more of an EP). It’s presented as a mixtape rather than an album, and there’s basically an entire album’s worth of additional material. In this sense, the songs are actually mixed together. Sometimes it seems like it’s a bit of a stretch to make the songs fit, but it seems like a bumpy ride is necessary for the producer to get his story across. Very high quality neo-grime. Sharp but still light and feathery. The beats aren’t as jagged or crushing or broken as other producers, and the melodies sometimes seem like 3D figures or mysterious gas clouds but there’s still weight to them. It also flows pretty quickly, it doesn’t feel like an intense, imposing marathon session of toughness. Also highly recommended is his
Xenoglossia tape from earlier this year.
July 4, 2016 at 12:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Pivotal: Operation Sound Invasion tape
No excuse for not getting to this one sooner. Five Star Hotel-affiliated Emergency Tapes/Visual Disturbances has been releasing an astonishing amount of work exploring rhythmic noise, juke, breakcore, grime, and all manners of intense, all-consuming sound. This is a dangerous, deadly, paranoid transmission from a top-secret bunker. Five Star makes an appearance, right after the raggacore-leaning “Nightmare Dive”. Even the tracks doing the deconstructed post-club thing are spiky and breaky. This one has too many angles to describe in detail and doing so would ruin the sense of surprise and shock anyway. A must-listen at
Bandcamp.
July 4, 2016 at 12:22 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Copley Medal: Teskind tape
Once again I’ve accumulated dozens of tapes that I haven’t gotten around to reviewing because I just don’t have time. This one is dark industrial droning with a few shafts of light peering out of the wreckage. The way the A-side gradually gets lighter and more hopeful is pretty spectacular. Second side isn’t as epic, but it gets into an odder, more minimalist space. The artwork has several panels, nice design, heavy paper. Listen on
Bandcamp.
July 3, 2016 at 2:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Brain Machine: Peaks 2LP
First thing I thought when I heard this was “Steve Roach disco”. It has the Berlin school arpeggios, but there’s also more of a sense of meditative space to it, and it’s rich and lush and mystical. But then there’s techno beats. It has a pretty wide range between drifty and more rhythmic tracks. Some tracks are deep space documentary soundtracks, others sound more like the work of a Krautrock band venturing into the outer limits. It venture pretty far out, but you can still find your way home.
July 3, 2016 at 2:33 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Rutger Hauser: self-titled
More rock instruments than a typical AD AAD AT release, but it’s still noisy and cut up and chaotic and makes little conventional sense. Still, the drums and guitars snake a path through the shrapnel of intense, sloppy digital manipulations. There’s jazzy elements, and also Nurse With Wound-like surrealist editing and sound design. Sometimes there’s slivers of what sounds like polka records venting through. Some of it’s thrashy, a lot of it’s covered in static. Then there’s quiet moments with birds chirping. It’ll disorient you. It’s totally worth it.
July 2, 2016 at 10:35 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kreng: Camino soundtrack
Kreng is a Belgian artist who’s made several dark, haunting experimental ambient albums as well as soundtracks to theater pieces, and now he’s doing film scores. Whatever this film is, its looks super violent and suspenseful, with lots of knives, and the music fits that. He brings an intense sound design aspect to his work, filling some tracks with more noise than you expect from a typical soundtrack. But then there’s a lot of more sparse, calm pieces. There’s also lots of sudden stabs and attacks. Definitely glad this guy’s making a living doing proper soundtracks like this.
July 2, 2016 at 10:31 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Spectres: Dead
Not familiar with Spectres themselves, but this is a collection of mostly abrasive rhythmic noise remixes which seem to have some sort of base in a form of non-mainstream rock music. On some track, it seems like the actual semblance of music has been scrubbed out, leaving only noise and throbbing rhythms. Other times, there are vocals and guitars still present, but it’s deconstructed enough to not sound like a proper song or a proper band. And then other songs emphasize techno beats. “Family (Oliver Wilde Remix)” and “Sink (“Factory Floor Remix)” do this while chopping the vocals and guitars up very finely. “This Purgatory (Blood Music Remix)” and “Mirror (Giant Swan Remix)” have beats, but also lots of messy, choppy clanging noises. “Lump (Gramrcy Remix)” is faster and more hypercharged. “Sea of Trees (Richard Fearless Remix)” starts out with steady bumping kick drums and droning, but then develops some nice fuzzy synth melodies. The last few tracks sound more like the works of a rock band, but “Sea of Trees (Andy Bell Remix)” has the vocals completely backwards, not unlike when the Stone Roses played around with backmasking. “This Prugatory (Stuart Braithwaite Remix)” has clearer vocals, coming closer to recent Wire, but the guitars are mostly replaced by shimmering synths.
July 2, 2016 at 7:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Atsuhiro Ito: Live
Two performanced by a Japanese experimental artist who plays a huge fluorescent light instrument called the optron. There must be a visual component to these performances that’s missing from the recording, but what’s here gets pretty intense. It takes a while to build, though. It sounds pretty lo-fi and kind of distant, with lots of buzzing and hissing. Both pieces eventually develop into throbbing rhythmic noise which almost approximates a weird form of techno. It seems like he’s using limited resources, like a no-input mixer or something, but he gets a lot out of what he’s using. The first performance ends up at a fast, almost gabber-speed beat (not as heavy) but the second has a more relaxed industrial techno beat, and there’s another dimension to it, thanks to guest artist Miclo Diet. Very exciting falling-apart junky improv electronics.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 