February 18, 2021 at 6:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Polytherian: Role Play LP
Dylan Tidyman-Jones used to make laid back dream pop as FRONDS, but now he’s going by the name Polytherian. It’s generally in the same boat, though, kind of delicate but groovable. “Role Play” is quite elegant, the drifty guitar melody just keeps repeating and it gets to you (in a sad and beautiful way). “Intention” is slightly more lonesome ’50s-tinged. “Nightmares” is a short interlude, then “Casting Call” has minimalist organs, a tricky time signature, pulsating beats, and some trippy echoing synths. It has no lyrics and fades out when it sounds like it’s going to take off and do something more interesting. The first couple tracks on the second side flirt with Brazilian rhythms, with some touches of synth distortion and a weird but friendly vibe. “Fan Fiction” is kind of like a spacier, bubblier version of Woods. “Hymn” is quietly ambitious, shifting tempos a few times while shimmering dreamily. The album seems light and inconsequential at first but it does seep into your brain if you give it a chance.
February 17, 2021 at 6:20 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Lewsberg: In This House LP
Rotterdam quartet Lewsberg play a stripped down, straightforward but intellectual form of garage rock which seems to be influenced entirely by the Velvet Underground. The songs themselves aren’t quite as memorable, but the musicianship and especially Arie von Vliet’s deadpan vocals are spot on. The album even starts off with a Waldo Jeffers-type story, “Left Turn”, although this one wraps up in 2 minutes. “Cold Light of Day” and “From Never to Once” are easy highlights of the first side, and between them sit a calmer observation about drinking at lunch (or not drinking at lunch) and a somewhat meandering instrumental. “The Door” is slower and seems unassuming at first, but then erupts into the most unhinged, noisy guitar soloing on the record. “Through the Garden” has startling lyrics about suicide and dirty deeds, yet the music is comparatively upbeat, bounding along straight and narrow without tipping over. After a brief noise interlude and the hushed murmur of “Jacob’s Ladder”, “Standard Procedures” is another winding story, with a greater sense of mystery than most of the other songs. Halfway through, it switches down from a taut, steady rhythm to a delicate, minimal instrumental, decaying the album to a close.
February 16, 2021 at 6:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment
Soft Shoulder: Not The New One LP
collects tracks recorded between 2015 and 2019 by various formations of the Phoenix-based group, essentially a vehicle for songwriter/shouter/musician James Fella. Contributors include Paul Arambula and members of No Babies, Filthy Grin, and other groups. It might not be a proper album recorded by a steady lineup, but it could pass for one, as Fella has a pretty consistent vision for his brand of Swell Maps/The Fall-esque noisy post-punk; the detours and freakouts all seem like part of the plan. Some tracks featured shorted-out electronics, and “Nowhere with Arambula” is skronky rat’s-nest free jazz. “Discard If Expired” starts out like a song but then gets constantly unwound, backed up, slipped out, and filed down, then returns to the ragged rhythm as if nothing happened. “R&S Holdings”, dedicated to featured bandmates Ricky Martyr and Sean Nieves, is a manic, heavy jam filled with vocals blown out and scattered by effects. After some more heat-damaged garage rock, “11 By 17” is another short swarm of improv jazz noise, then “Berlin’s Saat L’Lite” overlays a driving, kind of peppy rhythm with dissonant scraping and police radio transmissions. The extraneous noises go away, but then even stranger voices gargle and beatbox over the music.
February 15, 2021 at 3:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Tim Reaper: Teletext EP
Last month, Tim Reaper simultaneously released a Special Request remix EP and a
new 12″ on Lobster Theremin, and while they’re both excellent, the record of originals is the one I’m most excited about. Longtime resident DJ at
Blog to the Oldskool, he’s displayed an encyclopedic knowledge of jungle, particularly the atmospheric darkside stuff from the mid-’90s, and he’s been astoundingly skilled at producing music mirroring that style. “Anytime” does the always fulfilling trick of building up a blissful, sun-soaked atmosphere and torpedoing it with vicious Amen breaks. “Who Run It” is more of a breakbeat rave track with stomping beats, a few shocks of hardcore fury, 2 Unlimited samples, and a few more calming passages. “Teletext” is the killer, with firebombing psychedelic breaks and eerie synths which my ears are easily tricked into thinking are angelic choral voices. “Give It 2 Me” is more early ’90s hardcore that teeters on the throes of ecstasy but also glimpses into a portal of darkness for a few moments (watch for that ghoulish laughter).
February 14, 2021 at 2:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Soundtrack for Breakcore Guidebook
Two years ago, the founder of Japanese label Murder Channel published two volumes of a book covering the history of breakcore, tracing its roots from hardcore and industrial, as well as influences from death metal, ragga, IDM, free jazz, mashups, and rave music which became parts of the story over the years. Photos and easily translatable Japanese text are available to view
here and
here. Additionally, the label released a
soundtrack on Bandcamp filled with new and unreleased goodies from several longtime favorites from the scene. An unreleased, unfinished Dev/Null remix of Duran Duran Duran from 2007 appears near the beginning, starting out with a buildup similar to the sound of hardcore during that era, then just going off the rails for the rest of its duration. OVe-NaXx reaches even further back for his 2003 track, which sounds a little rough and demo-y but its ecstatically sweet melodies and his inventive ways of contorting beats render the track a success. The genre’s evolution is traced with more elaborate, dramatic tracks by Ruby My Dear and Stazma, and there’s an all-too-rare appearance by Twenty Knives, who does a sort of gothy indie rock song with breakbeats and possibly a theremin. Electromeca does his usual dense jigsaw distorted hiphop-core, this time with shreds of static-riddled radio pop songs. Aaron Spectre continues his recent run of some of his best work ever, and Gore Tech and FFF similarly keep raggacore blazing in the 2020s. There’s another recent Bandcamp breakcore comp that I downloaded that I’m going to get around to reviewing soon which feels like more of an update of what younger producers in the scene are doing, but this is a quality example of how the ’00s/early ’10s school is holding up.
February 13, 2021 at 2:19 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Gallery S: The Many Hands Of God
MoMA Ready
debuted his Gallery S project early last year with an eclectic album of breaks, house, and hardcore which instantly ranked with his best work. The project’s
newest album is possibly even better, with a greater emphasis on euphoric jungle that seems to conceal some inner darkness and loneliness. Swift and choppy but natural-sounding breakbeats and smooth builds, sighing pads, mysterious vocal samples. It gets rougher during the second half, which is where it starts hitting me that this is the best album I’ve heard so far this year. Super intelligent, kind of mystical without going too deep, truly inspired but also just easily enjoyable as a collection of fresh jungle tracks.
February 12, 2021 at 8:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
USA/Mexico: Del Rio LP
This Austin supergroup featuring members of Butthole Surfers, Shit & Shine, and Expensive Shit (see a pattern?) continues getting heavier, sludgier, and more monstrous with every release.
Their third LP feels absolutely crushed and maxed out, yet still piledrives and steamrolls. Outside of the guitars soaring over the top, it’s hard to even pick out the individual instruments in this massive pile of radioactive chili glop, but there’s a lurching rhythm to it which pulls you in and physically tosses you around. It is absolutely necessary to blast this at head-wrecking volume, loud enough so that it clears out your mind. First track “Chorizo” is easily digestible enough at 4 minutes, but the other two go on for way longer, with “Del Rio” taking up the entire B-side and just getting heavier and more toxic. The vocals are just grotesque and demonic. Yet more music that makes me want live music to come back quickly so I can get consumed by a set from these guys at some Austin dive like Beerland, if I ever visit that city again.
February 11, 2021 at 7:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
His Name Is Alive: Ghost Tape EXP
HNIA is about to drop a third LP of early ambient recordings, plus a
4 CD box set (which I’ve ordered and hope shows up soon), but in the meantime, last year they released some other tapes related to this excavation mission. There’s a tape of AM radio recordings, a tape of dubby beat-driven remixes and then Model Home’s versions of that material, and now here’s something that seems in the middle of all of those.
Ghost Tape EXP has some beats near the beginning, as well as some crusted-over lo-fi drone and some slowly vibrating space rock zone-outs. It’s not quite clear if it’s a remix album, outtakes, revisions, new material in the same vein, or maybe all of those melted together. “Sun Reflection” scorches a bit and seems closer to the noisiness of
Return to Never, then “Witch Marks” is frostbitten glacier drone with icy echoes (at the beginning). It ends up with “My Heart Will Go Out”, which starts out still and placid before guitars roll across the landscape and a melody briefly surfaces before it all gets cast out back to the tundra. It’s not a huge departure from all the other recent releases but it’s still slightly
other and vaguely familiar.
February 10, 2021 at 7:53 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Blanche Blanche Blanche: Seashells
On New Year’s Day, Blanche Blanche Blanche released their
first LP in over six years, and somehow it’s been overlooked in favor of the other new Zach Phillips-related album that came out that day, Fievel Is Glauque’s debut, which is getting way more attention so far. I’ll get to reviewing that one soon, but BBB deserves mention for now.
Wink With Both Eyes was easily my favorite album of 2012, and I’ve been following them and their related projects ever since. This album was recorded on a Tascam 424 in short bursts between 2017 and 2019, almost entirely by Sarah Smith & Zach Phillips (Ryan Power plays guitar on one song), and it’s maybe their most lo-fi, fragmented release yet. Less hyper than the punk/prog bent of albums like
Breaking Mirrors, not as hooky as
Wink, this one features sentimental/searching lyrics frequently undercut and sideswiped by quick, angular bursts of splattered keyboard melodies and multi-tracked vocal interjections. A few phrases pop up throughout the album with increasing frequency (“Jeepers creepers, y’all”, “shoot your shot”), and if you aren’t paying attention close enough, quirks like this might distract from some of the more poignant and empowering messages and anecdotes in the lyrics. I don’t really want to give away everything that goes on here, partially because a lot of it rushes by quickly without repetition and it’s hard to process it all, but it’s just as inventive and cryptic as the rest of their releases. Hey, they’re just trying to change the world.
February 10, 2021 at 6:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Paradox: Counter Active
Guyanese keyboardist Jean-Phi Dary joined Jeff Mills and legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen for a series of improvised collaborative performances a few years ago. I kind of feel bad saying this but in all honesty, when I saw them in Detroit, I thought Dary and Mills were far more in tune with each other, and Allen was a little out of his element and seemed like he was struggling to keep up. Maybe other shows were different, I haven’t checked out any clips of their other performances online. Regardless, there’s definitely a spark between Mills and Dary, and it’s plainly evident with their first album together as The Paradox. Much looser, jazzier, and housier than most of the music Mills is commonly associated with, their debut album contains six tracks which feel like the best moments of a series of free but focused jam sessions. Mills programs beat patterns on the fly and augments them with real-time percussion, and Dary plays smoothly flowing but disciplined keyboard melodies. “Super Solid” (with guitarist Herve Samb) and “The X Factor” are the most overtly Afrobeat-sounding tracks here, but all of them incorporate shifting polyrhythms, and while “Twilight” is maybe the closest to Mills’ usual spacey techno, all of the tracks get deep. Effortlessly successful, hopefully there’s more to come from this project.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 