September 9, 2024 at 10:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Dr. Pete Larson & his Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band: Michigan Traditional Music LP
The newest Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band album encompasses more influences and sounds than previous records, and it’s entirely fitting that it simply dubs itself its own form of music. Larson’s nyatiti playing feels less like the focal point here, and his recent interest in synths makes an impact on the group’s sound. Fred Thomas also provides synth as well as guitar, and Tom Hohmann plays drums.
The Bandcamp version separates the album into different tracks, but the vinyl doesn’t, and each side flows continuously. This is some of the furthest-out Cytotoxic Nyatiti Band music yet, filled with unpredictable mixing and strange dynamics. It could be compared to any number of Krautrock bands, and I’m also somehow getting mystical Alice Coltrane vibes too. There’s also some drone sections, like at the end of the first side, some heavy guitar blare that shoegaze/space rock fans might appreciate, and even some straight-up techno beats at the end of the second side. It’s just marvelous, words don’t do it justice.
September 9, 2024 at 9:34 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Scott Avery: Dark Side of Mars 12″
by Scott Avery is a concept record about an android/Martian/human hybrid from the future who crash landed in Detroit in 1992 during a time machine malfunction. Inspired by the burgeoning techno scene, he creates his own music, and this is the result. “The Horizon” is a suspenseful yet also motivational track that takes up the entire A-side. “Dark Side of Mars” is a shorter, more stripped-down remix of “The Horizon” that keeps the vibe but removes the suspenseful strings. “Dark Matter” is the best overall, the bassline sets it up and the chords just elevate it to a blissful state.
September 8, 2024 at 9:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
DJ Resurgence: Bass Motivator EP 12″
DJ Resurgence is the new moniker of Kris Harris, formerly known as DJ Surgeon. He’s released music on Databass and Cratesavers, worked with Scan 7, and is a veteran of the Detroit jit and electro scene. This is the fifth release on the recently formed Global Electronic Music imprint, and it is a deadly shot of pure electro. All of it is solid, but the bullet track is “The Essence”, which says everything it needs to with a robot voice repeating “313” and a human voice declaring “I’m the essence of electro”. Following in that theme, “You Not Ready” reminds you that “electro is alive”. “Chop It” has such a fun bassline that just flows like a wave fit for surfing, and “Get Out My Mix” is a steady dancefloor electro cut with a warning about a “paranoid universe” at the end.
September 1, 2024 at 2:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
David F. Friedman: The Best of David F. Friedman
isn’t a conventional soundtrack release. It’s actually a collection of trailers and audio from movies by David F. Friedman, who was infamous for B-movies, exploitation, and sexploitation films. A DVD is included showing the trailers in their full glory, and they are definitely not safe for kiddies and conservatives. But the CD is mostly playable on the air, it’s filled with campy music and funny voiceovers ripe for sampling. The movies all sound horrendous but fascinating. “The Headmistress” takes a weird turn. “The Acid Eaters” is everything you could ask for from an exploitation movie trailer. “Space Thing” is a funny sci-fi erotica trailer. “The Pick-Up” has some amazing drumming, and so does “The Masterpiece”. “Amateur Night” is an instrumental sleaze-funk track (but it still has a sort of tinny movie trailer quality). Lots of filthy fun to be heard/seen here.
August 20, 2024 at 8:47 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Fire-Toolz: Breeze
The
new Fire-Toolz album comes after Angel Marcloid’s move to a nice house by a lake an hour West of Chicago, and it feels like an interpretation of what happens when a weirdo from a busy city moves into a safe suburban neighborhood. You can almost imagine the visuals of someone in a full corpsepaint black metal outfit mowing the lawn and planting flowers in the yard, greeting the old lady who lives next door. There is something of a domestic, controlled atmosphere to these songs, yet there’s also a heavier presence of death metal growling and crunchy guitar shredding. “Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window” starts out sounding almost like Jesu with extra IDM glitches, then Cole Pulice’s sax smooths it out. Breaking from the metal-inspired intensity of most of the tracks, “Sibling Sun, Sibling Moon, White Concrete Steeped In Celestial Light” flows between dark ambient, new age, and eventually cosmic Americana. “A Considerate Amount of Pining” throws noise-bombs and rattling breakcore drums onto the ground, and drifts away from rhythm, ending up one of the album’s more sprawling, body-escaping tracks. “The Pain-Body (Child Synergy Tears)” also has a bit of a Jesu vibe at first, before it escalates into an emo anthem. There’s just an amazing duality throughout this album, it’s chaotic and destructive and outwardly expressive but still controlled and balanced in its own way.
August 18, 2024 at 5:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Earth Ball: It’s Yours LP
British Columbian group
Earth Ball are a quintet who play heavy, noisy, improvisatory music that doesn’t feel constrained by any category. Opener “Moon FM” is like a Bardo Pond-style heavy psych jam but with skronking saxophone replacing some of the distortion. And then “Antifreeze” is the type of free jazz where it’s like a spirit is making the musicians contort their bodies to force all these erratic sounds and movements out, before a swarm of noisy guitars take over, along with some almost shamanic shouting. “Through & Through” doesn’t get as intense, it kind of stalks and scorches but doesn’t combust into chaos. “A Need to Cool Down” seems like it’s meant to throw your brain multiple directions at once. The drums stumble and collapse, the panned guitars sound like machines being smacked and they’re constantly shooting out sparks, and both vocalists are bounding at you and trying to corner you. And then it rides into this peppy garage rock rhythm, taking flight after it seemed like it was going to fall out of a tree at first. “Flash in the Pan” seems to land on its pounding rhythm after flailing around in a swamp, and ends up with this squonky sax-drenched “Poptones” groove. “Hollowgrama” is another barely contained free jazz splatter which eventually does manage to settle down and make sense of itself. Earth Ball’s unbounded, free expression deserves to be played at the highest possible volume so that their unnaturally high energy levels are felt by your entire body.
August 11, 2024 at 6:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Charlatan: Vapor Tides
The first track from
this album, “Introduction to a Vulnerable World”, was used as the intro for a
Foxy Digitalis podcast for a while, so it had been burned into my mind and I was looking forward to it finally getting a proper release. This is what the Brad Rose project sounds like in aquatic, somewhat psychedelic synth mode, and it’s just a lovely wash of lovely prismatic sounds. It seems silly to remark that already this sounds like a flashback to around 15 years ago when neo-new age synth music sounded fresh and new. Anyone who’s been into that stuff has heard so much of it by now that it doesn’t seem like there’s much that can be done with it that’s still different and exciting. Nevertheless, this one is just incredibly refreshing, the water sounds and textures meld together to form this perfect aqueous flow. Inevitaby
Science of the Sea comes to mind, but this doesn’t feel like a plunge into depths of the ocean. Instead, like its title, it’s more of a gentle tidal mist, but it’s still an immersive one.
August 6, 2024 at 8:14 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Moth Cock: HausLive 3: Chicago Twofer
The first Moth Cock release I ever heard was a live recording, and that left a pretty big impression, so I feel like their energy is always going to translate best when it’s an in-the-moment document.
The newest HausLive volume is two entire concerts by the duo, and it makes it seem like the duo just have a faucet of weird energy that they can turn on and off at any given moment. You could imagine them just doing a 6-hour marathon and they’d still keep hitting on weird sounds and frequencies, and they wouldn’t feel the need to stop. The way the beats constantly mutate can bring to mind Autechre’s live jams, but that duo could never replicate the type of frenzy whipped up by Moth Cock’s mangled sax/trumpet squonking. The last 10 minutes of the May 6, 2023 gig at Not Not are particularly mind-melting, twisting absurd voices and gelatinous basslines, then stuttering noises into speedcore blasts. The other gig (at DADS, December 15, 2023), goes stupid hard for a show where one of the musicians was laying on a recliner.
June 23, 2024 at 11:03 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Duran Duran Duran: Supernatural Beast City
Ed Flis resurfaces with his most genuinely rave-friendly work to date.
Supernatural Beast City is pretty far from the hard electro-techno he was doing for a while, and much closer to breakbeat hardcore revival. Dev/Null has long since made the transition from breakcore to retro-rave, and he appears on one of this album’s more club-ready cuts (“Just Feel It”). But there’s also some gorgeous atmospheric jungle here (“94.Rinse.out”) and some tricky dub-influenced breaks (“Ikaria”). Tracks like “Faceplant” have mega-choppy breaks but are remarkably easy to follow along and dance to. Truly masterful modern hardcore breaks.
June 22, 2024 at 11:40 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Michel Banabila: Unspeakable Visions LP
Michel Banabila’s
latest LP goes beyond “fourth world”, creating an entirely new world of its own. Most of the tracks feature artificial voices, singing and speaking in an invented language. The deconstructed gibberish words flow through soundscapes which are sometimes mysterious (“Darker and Darker”) and other times are just straight up playful (opener “Viva Voce”). “So Far Yet So Near” has a feeling of almost familiarity — the first vocal part sounds like the oft-sampled “it’s just, you’re alone” line from Streetwise, and it feels like it approximates African rhythms and chillout room textures, but it’s difficult to narrow down exactly what it’s emulating, or synthesizing. “Little Star” seems like it can only be described as an alien lullaby. “AI Brainfire” seems to deal with technological overload by embracing full-on dance beats. The album ends with a title track which calms everything down and lets you reflect on all the altered reality you’ve just witnessed.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 