February 27, 2016 at 8:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Traxman feat. DJ Fred: Slash Time – The Album
Footwork hasn’t been the same since DJ Rashad’s untimely death, but there’s still been some great releases (especially by other Teklife members and Indiana’s Jlin) and worldwide development of the genre. Following 2 Planet Mu albums and digital releases, Traxman joined fellow Chicago innovators DJ Clent and DJ Roc by releasing an album on Duck N’ Cover Records. The album definitely keeps with the spirit of the original, gritty footwork sound, not the Hyperdub one with more of a connection to the jungle, techno, and EDM worlds. Tracks on this CD such as “Boogie Woogie” have uptempo 4/4 beats and even breakbeats, and might have been produced a decade or go, it doesn’t specify the recording dates. “She Take It In The Face” is annoying, sexist, and easily skippable, but after that there’s plenty of intriguing weirdness, like the squirmy Mr. Oizo synths of “Taken A Trip U”, “Unstoppable”, and “Electro Tekk”, and the warp speed laser whip “Slash Time”. “Survive” features an oddly gospel-ish vocal sample and overdriven rave piano-like synths, and then the beats just push it over the top. The last few tracks dig up dusty old soul records from the closet for sample-mining purposes, and “We On Mars” sounds more sleepy and even melancholy than you might expect. Traxman has said that this isn’t a sequel to his Planet Mu albums, but it doesn’t really differ from them too much, it’s still from the same mind.
February 27, 2016 at 7:40 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
CDR: Acid Waltz
According to
Discogs, so far this year, CDR has released 3 splits, an EP, and a
50-track album. This is all in addition to the hundreds of other releases he’s put out or been featured on since the late ’90s.
Acid Waltz still seems to be the most recently released CD by him, thanks to AD AAD AT, who also released the dynamic
split 12″ he did with DJ Topgear, which might be his best work to date. This album focuses on marring acid techno with his signature smashed-up Amen breaks and sometimes classical-inspired melodies (not really any anime samples on this album, as far as I can tell). There’s 2 “Acid Hell” tracks which appropriately take his sound into its most overwhelming level of intensity. Not to mention “Too Much Monster Energy”. But then there’s the softer, pretty tracks like “Fin” and both versions of “For You”. And the mutilated hardstyle of “What Is EDM”. You can grab (lo-bitrate) mp3s for free on
AD AAD AT’s site, but the CD is well worth buying.
February 27, 2016 at 7:13 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
IXTAB: Voice-Hand tape
You know those signs that say “This is a good sign”? Maybe there should be a roll of tape that says “This is a good tape” for when I review cassettes like this. OK, maybe that’s a dumb idea, but this is still really good. Recorded between Austin, Seattle, and Dartmoor, UK, this is nearly a full hour of steely industrial techno made with an old guitar, a reel-to-reel tape recorder, a circuit bent Casio SK-1, found sounds, and nature recordings. Very kinetic machine music which sometimes feels a bit airy and thin (“Hask”) and other times has fat throbbing beats and distortion (“Ysel”). Still feels more like lo-fi techno than industrial, but there’s undoubtedly an industrial element/construction to it, and it flares up into spark-emitting noise and gets warped and noisy at times. After some more straightforward 4/4 tracks, “Inducer II” is more of a hollowed-out ticking mid-’90s Autechre thing, then “Brink” goes back to the hazy industrial pounding. “Down” is a brief beatless respite before the crackling ’80s electro-techno of “Flatland”. The tape-ending “Modulous” features the album’s most splintered, scattered beats; speed it up 50 BPM or so and it’s basically breakcore. Tape’s sold out, and you can’t have mine, but you can hear it on
Bandcamp.
February 27, 2016 at 3:14 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Everest Magma: Modern/Antique LP
This one immediately grabs my attention with its dilapidated loops of reversed tablas and short-circuited buzzing. Eventually some tape-damaged vocals creep in, and it just gets more confusing and bewildering. The second track is more steady, but it gets more intense and befuddling, with weird bubbling sounds and delay. The third track starts with sparse voices and pulsing, then attacks with drilling electronic rhythm. The second side has more combinations of harsh pounding rhythms and eerie chanting voices which sound like they’re summoning something from the dead, or maybe being conjured up themselves. The final track sounds deceptively calm, then gets washed and fizzled away with more bizarre effects. The way the vocals sing in that distorted, tape-mangled moan somehow sounds so natural, even if it’s completely artificial and impossible without technology. Anyway, great album, check it out on
Bandcamp.
February 26, 2016 at 8:35 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Bas Amro: Imposter Persona 12″
This one sneaked up on me, I had it on my hard drive for a while and when I finally got around to playing it on Crush Collision last night, it clicked. It reminds me of the Mr. Fingers-isms of Khotin, but not quite as brazenly melodic. It’s way more subtle, with some of the edges blurred and hazy. Minimal, tech-y, a little dubby, but also a bit mysterious. Aside from the beat, the sounds in “Dissociation” all seem to be playing backwards, but it takes a few minutes for you to even notice. “Defensive” ups the classy dub-house-disco quotient. The opening title track is still the winner, though.
February 24, 2016 at 11:40 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
How to Cure Our Soul: Luna tape
The third How to Cure Our Soul release is all about staring at the moon on a dark, bleary night, not exactly getting a clear view of the sky but trying anyway. The three tracks here are blurry and warbly but still aim straight for the heavens. They’re also pretty sparse and subtle, differing slightly throughout their durations. “Night climb to the Mount Analogue” is the longest drone at 15 minutes, and it’s the one that’s most likely to make the moon seem haunted.
February 22, 2016 at 10:54 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Erik Waterkotte + Ryan Huber: …And Now They Are Gone CDr
Two new CDr’s have just arrived from RH on Inam Records.
The one with Erik Waterkotte is the less limited of the two (at 80 copies), and it has fancier, screen printed packaging. The music is pretty different than Huber’s usual work; a lot of it is more hissing, scraping, and field recordings, and not as much in the way of beats or rhythmic drones. The first few tracks feel like they were recorded in a factory. “…antag: v” feels a bit more glitchy and computer-generated. The tracks that follow are more haunted drone. “…antag: vii” is pretty lovely; “…antag viii” is a repetitive, slow throb. “…antag: ix” is footsteps, buzzing, and the distant sound of something falling or knocking. The buzzing gets louder. “…antag: x” is another factory drone which seems like it’s going to build or change but it doesn’t.
Ryan Huber: Kanab CDr
(and the more limited, and honestly better, of the 2) is named after one of Utah’s finest cities. This one only has 3 tracks, but the first one is a phenomenal 15 minute burner, with a thumping beat barely keeping afloat while churning feedback noise growls away on top of it. It’s hard to tell if it ends up crossfading to another beat, or if the one beat keeps going and shifting down a bit. Regardless, it’s hypnotic and goes on for a really long time and it’s incredible. “Lantern” sounds like harsh, ripping wind with a loop of some sort of chatter underneath. After the 4 minute piece ends, it abruptly shifts to “Red Gods, which has an upfront techno beat chattering away over a void-like drone. Really, though, the beat is what takes up most of your attention. Near the end, there’s some bubbly effects around the beat, and then the track actually has a proper ending where the beat deconstructs before dropping out entirely.
February 20, 2016 at 8:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Christopher Riggs and Carl Testa: Sn
This CD documents a 40-minute improv session recorded at the intimate Firehouse 12 venue in New Haven, CT, right near my hometown, Hamden. Riggs plays prepared electric guitar and Testa processes it live, warping it far beyond the already highly unconventional manners in which Riggs plays it. I have to admit, previous Riggs recordings that I’ve heard just sounded too discordant to me and I couldn’t really enjoy them, but this recording sounds great. I think the fact that it’s an actual CD rather than a cassette might help. Apparently there’s a 5.1 Surround version available to download, which probably sounds even more mindblowing, if you have that kind of audio setup (I don’t). But anyway, the duo conjure up a multitude of bizarre sounds and then push them further out into space. Given that there’s only one instrument being played, it gets very sparse and then explosive and wild, with various scrapings, rumblings, and pluckings in between. At times there’s some harsh viola-like bowing, and some manic squiggly tones, and even some moments when it sounds like some lost voices are in the mix. Near the end it starts to imitate some exotic animal cries, with a cloud of effects giving it a haunted rainforest feel.
February 20, 2016 at 7:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Petrichor: Mångata
Another one that sort of creeps up on you, but it seems more vital the more you listen. I almost though it was a metal album when I first saw it, until I noticed it was on Soma. Very gorgeous deep-space ambient techno, with unobtrusive but carefully assembled beats and rich washes of wet, dubby pads. While there’s a copious amount of echo surrounding the sparse beats, it doesn’t quite feel accurate to lump this one in with dub techno. It feels like there’s much more of a focus on melody, and the tracks build up a lot more. There’s some progressive, underwater breakbeats and creeping chords which make the album feel like a more submerged version of labelmates such as Slam. Yes, it’s spacey and underwater at the same time somehow, although some tracks are a bit more grounded. Detroit and Berlin influences are alluded to, but the album is still in its own orbit.
February 20, 2016 at 7:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Povab: Zarja
Another unassuming CD that knocked me out. This one isn’t even on Discogs (but it is on
Bandcamp) and I can’t find too much info about it, other than that it was going to be released on another label before Psychonavigation picked it up for one of their imprints. Whoever this artist is, some of these tracks build up intense machine rhythms and tear them to shreds, like the Somatic Reponses-esque “20”. Other tracks have more steady techno beats, but they’re still tense and kind of suffocating. Then there’s the more dancey, industrial-influenced tracks. But even these play around with the form, taking the beats from being danceable to half-time rhythms. Some of the drums are more explosive and bashy, and others are fizzled apart by acidic chemicals. And then other pieces are more ominous and barely have drums at all (piano-driven “110” is a gruesomely violent scene waiting to happen). So much detail, and every track sounds different. Don’t overlook this one!
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The Answer Is In The Beat 