March 8, 2022 at 6:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Wayward: Waiting for the World Remixed
Once again, I am reviewing a
remix album for a record I haven’t listened to in its original form. Unless I actually did and I forgot or didn’t keep a record of it, I can not remember anything at all these days. It seems like the London duo are big into emulating and paying tribute to all the dance genres that shaped their lives, so it’s a huge pool of jungle, rave, house, Balearic, etc. influences. The most immediately remarkable thing about this is the presence of another brilliant Tim Reaper remix, the fantastic whirlwind “All a Bit Mad”. “Canvey Island (unperson’s restless tide mix)” creeps up on you, slowly drawing out blankets of tense synths and subtly sneaking in some microscopic breaks. Both parts of “Casper” are intricately designed club tracks which take their time to bloom. “Jill (Kilig’s Hangover Fear Remix)” is a reflective daydream that sounds perfect for laying down by the window on a sunny afternoon. “Thirty Three (Eliza Rose Re-Rub)” has a striding U.K. garage beat and gentle, cascading synths, plus an encouraging “you got to be free” vocal. Kareem Ali has it both ways with house and D&B mixes of “Ridge Road”, which are both uplifting in different manners. The last track, “Bright (Tour-Maubourg Sunset Dub Mix)”, is a more acoustic Ibiza sunset comedown that could easily fit on a Café Del Mar compilation.
March 7, 2022 at 6:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Remain Alone (A Disciples Compilation)
This
brief compilation follows the recent
ESP Summer reunion album, which featured deconstructions of a 13th Floor Elevators song. Here, a handful of artists on the label offer interpretations and covers of the band’s music. Model Home’s “Splash on the Canvas” seems to have nothing in common with the band on the surface, attempting to capture some sort of abstract impression of their music rather than emulating it directly. It’s slow and drizzly, with NappyNappa’s usual scrambled vocals fluttering over Pat Cain’s drifting, minimal beats. His Name Is Alive’s version of “We Sell Soul” is a distortion-caked batch of chiming psychedelic pop melodies with wolverine howls ripping through them. Phew renders “We Are Never Talking” as streams of frazzled electronics with detached voices echoing through them, occasionally returning to something which comes close to a sing-song melody. 3 Eyed Monkey is a project of ESP Summer/Pale Saints’ Ian Masters and Nick Davidson of Magic Roundabout, and their cover of “Never Another” is the most straightforward psych-pop tune here, particularly with its Mellotron and relaxed, swaying rhythm, though there’s a big sheet of searing feedback on top. Finally, Model Home returns with a dubby instrumental version of their song, which feels like a bunch of icicles melting in real time as the temperature slowly rises.
March 6, 2022 at 4:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Windowshopping: Andromeda
I’ve been featuring a lot of Landline Collective-related releases lately, but the artists I’ve heard have all been putting out consistently amazing stuff, and
this is no different. It’s filled with fast, ravey breaks, dolphin-like synths/samples, and just enough twisted time signatures to avoid seeming formulaic. And it’s noticeably footwork-influenced, which will always be welcome. Just a beautiful mixture of hyperspeed break choppage, beautiful/fuzzy/ecstatic melodies, and psychedelic energy. I’ve been hearing breakcore oldtimers complain that the genre is basically turning into mid animecore Spotify playlists made by lonely gamers, and even if there is some truth to that, so much of this music is still creative and emotional and spirited and full of life. Enjoying this one immensely.
March 5, 2022 at 4:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
DJ KLAPTRAP: empathy box
San Antonio’s DJ KLAPTRAP is part of the rising Landline Collective.
This brief album is only the artist’s second release, but it displays a skill for smashing breakbeats up with a range of moods and sounds. The intro and the dubby, slo-mo “Milankovitchianism Extremist” are more detached, but there’s other tracks with more direct, aggressive breaks and also some high-speed rave tomfoolery. “Drunk” is more of an atmospheric, floating d’n’b track with focused but tripped-out breaks. After the sludgy industrial crawl of “Eyes (Slow Mix)”, “All Of It Crumbles By Your Hand” is a high-speed burst of choppy radioactive shrapnel recalling early Duran Duran Duran, eventually combusting into a speedcore nightmare. Nicely done.
March 4, 2022 at 6:46 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Charbonneau/Amato: Synth Works Vol. 2
make the sort of analog synth music that feels like it’s blooming in a well-tended garden. Even with the occasional presence of mechanized beats that provide rhythmic skeletons, the tracks are filled with other textures that flow and scatter like a mass of big green leaves in the breeze. Also, these tracks are often super melodic, although the well-named “Évaporations” does feel like it’s emitting droplets of a tune rather than the tune itself. Warm and fuzzy but also with a bit of a wintry glow, this is electronic music that’s cultivated rather than programmed.
February 26, 2022 at 5:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Joy Guidry: Radical Acceptance
Composer and bassoonist Joy Guidry’s
debut album is a powerful statement of purpose. They preface everything with an attention-grabbing intro titled “Just Because I Have a Dick Doesn’t Mean I’m a Man”, which sounds like a casual interview clip in which the artist describes their gender dysphoria and how they learned to accept themselves as a queer, trans, fat, Black, nonbinary person. Their speech is so matter-of-fact, candid, and self-assured, and I would love to hear them speak for much longer, but this isn’t a spoken word album. From there, it’s hard to predict where this album is going to go, and it inhabits a lot of spaces. A brief gospel interlude provides the only other verbal expression on the album, otherwise Guidry uses music to interpret their journey to self acceptance. From the minimalist dark ambient drone “Face to Face”, we are thrown into the turbulent vortex of “Inner Child”, an ecstatic to the point of frightful free jazz piece which moves from a multi-drum attack to trebly reed screeching to sparse, intimate bassoon melodies. “Why Is Toxicity So Yummy?” is also tense and overwhelming, gradually piling on more and more chaotic elements, and “How to Breathe While Dying” sounds as strenuous as its title. “Voices of the Ancestors” is a live spiritual jazz piece which sounds deeply comforting, the hand percussion especially just feels nourishing. The album ends with “Grace”, an ambient reflection which just feels like a pure beam of light and like the album’s intro track, I would find a longer version, or an expansion on this idea, most welcome. I’m happy to hear anything Joy has to say, honestly, and I find their message of radical acceptance to be truly inspirational.
February 25, 2022 at 8:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Das Spezial: Sifar The Remixes 12″ EP
keeps a low profile, but they’ve released a considerable amount of music since 2019, and they’ve gotten some well-regarded names to remix their tracks. For
this remix EP, they hand three tracks from last year’s
Sifar off to Low Jack, Bruce, Lakker, and Etch. Low Jack’s “Kefi” is a slow, lurching crawler with more gun sounds than percussion. Bruce somehow takes the same song and turns it into a faster, chirpier disco-tech track which ends up much cuter than expected. Lakker dos a sort of detached yet charging mix of “Nyctophile”, with nebulous synths flowing around a clicking broken beat pattern, and machine glitches lightly fizzing around. Etch’s “Blazemoche” has a slow-motion forward momentum clearly drawing from drum’n’bass, but remains lurking in the shadows instead of brocking out on the dancefloor.
February 24, 2022 at 7:46 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Vex Collection: s/t
is a celebration of reeds and percussion, with multiple bagpipes and traditional Korean woodwind instruments meeting gongs and flailing, octopus-limbed drumming. To top it all off, there’s live electronics adding some extra sizzle. “Ira Minervae” sets the album in gear with an energy burst of percussion and droning sun rays. “Hex Cleanse” has some more stiff, scorching bagpipe drone but its jazz elements bubble under and come close to taking over. “A Rare Lightness” is a more dynamic electroacoustic piece which avoids drums and focuses on suspended notes augmented by electronic effects. It’s mesmerizing. “Bagslingers” is a collision of avant-jazz and bagpipes that demonstrates how you can wield a bag like an axe, and “Dirge” has a little more swing than its title suggests. “Fugue” is one of the more drone-heavy pieces on the album, but easily one of its most triumphant. The album’s liner notes provide details about where all the instruments originate and how they’re constructed.
February 22, 2022 at 7:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
5ubaruu & saves: S5
Both of these producers are unknown to me, but they’re part of Landline Collective, which also includes several neo-jungle/breakcore/rave artists that I’m into, such as Nanoray, Windowshopping, DJ Klaptrap, and Bye2.
This EP is short but loaded with emotions. 5ubaruu’s “parisian skyline” mixes haunting choral vocals, sparkling melodies, and some brutal choppage and break scattering. Much of this is comparable, with breaks often diced into micro-shreds while the textures are sweet and glimmering. Both solo tracks by saves are a bit hazier, but eventually come through with some sunlight-soaked midtempo breaks. And the finale “moving on” is just simply gorgeous.
February 21, 2022 at 4:57 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Bézier: Valencia
Bézier’s
fifth Dark Entries release starts out in a sort of sci-fi industrial disco mode with “Resurrection”. Then “Past the Marches” has a faster tempo suggesting hi-NRG, but uneasy synths that feel like Aphexian braindance on the verge of a breakdown. “Valencia” is comparable, but more frantic, and just far more together. It’s fast, racing, dramatic, and just absolutely on point. The skipping beat patterns and elegant vocals add a whole lot of zest to “Reservoir”, and “Scrupulous” is a brief jog straight up to the stars. “Ravel” is upbeat but still moderately paced compared to other tracks on here, and it also has an ecstatic “reach for the stars” feeling.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 