February 9, 2021 at 8:25 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Blush To The Snow: s/t
The artist once known, in much simpler times, as Ill Cosby (among countless other names) returns with a new alias far from the IDM, mashups, and shapeshifting club styles he’s produced in the past.
Blush To The Snow has the appearance of a black metal release, and though it’s just as wintry, in actuality it’s richly textured ambient and drone. Most of the tracks segue into one another, creating a sound blanket that slowly shifts into different places. The centerpiece is the title track, 12 minutes of whirling, chiming tones which seem like they’re breathing. Other tracks drift in the wind or rushing water, while “Freeze Frame” basically does what it says, allowing you to observe the minute details of a suspended winter scene.
February 7, 2021 at 1:50 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
386 DX: Biggest Smash Hits
was a “cyberpunk-rock band” helmed by Moscow-based contemporary artist
Alexei Shulgin, who performed MIDI covers of classic rock tunes, sung by a Russian-accented robot. Definitely a novelty act comparable to Anton Maiden or the Moog Cookbook, but like those artists, elaborate and absurd enough to transcend its novelty status to the realm of the sublime. A longtime
WFMU favorite, the project has achieved minor internet cult status, particularly for the “California Dreaming” cover. I honestly forgot about 386 DX until Staalplaat released
Biggest Smash Hits this month, and it’s been a happy rediscovery to say the least. The details are what make this fascinating: the robot’s attempt to approximate Johnny Rotten’s snarl and James Hetfield’s manly growl, the 8-bit John Bonham drum solos which just sound like a bunch of pixels being rubbed together, the way the vocals extend during the choruses but still struggle to fit all the syllables on beat during “Jumpin’ Jack Flash”. The renditions are super precise in some aspects, but still limited to dinky MIDI technology and still imperfect in a human way. And the vocals make this seem funny even when it shouldn’t (i.e. the cover of Nirvana’s “Rape Me”). “Should I Stay Or Should I Go” is performed without the gonzo backing vocals, perhaps adding a slight sense of desperation to the song, but not enough to derail its silliness. This comp includes one song from the project’s
Legends of Russian Rock album, and it’s easily the wildest thing here, sort of a Chuck Berry-on-speed rave-up with rapidfire whooping vocals in Russian. Not sure if this project is still active, I’m assuming his janky old computer died a long time ago and it would probably be hard to salvage a system old enough to reproduce something like this, but at least the internet is keeping the legend alive, and now it’s made it to vinyl.
February 6, 2021 at 2:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
IMOGEN & Ben Pest: Volts 12″ EP
The opening title track to
this EP is just a monster. Driving train industrial techno which simmers over with acid and adds some crushing breakbeats right in the nick of time. Gets it cracking, doesn’t overdo it. Super well done. Besides that, “Gramalkin” is more gnashing industrial techno with corrosive, boiling synth distortion. “Shibooty” is less abrasive and more Chicago-influenced (obviously), but has some Reese-ish bass cruising underneath and a definite rave flavor. “Misjudgement Day” is the electro jam, and could do damage on the darkest dancefloor in the Hague.
February 5, 2021 at 6:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Sexual Harrassment: I Need a Freak LP
Later namechecked by LCD Soundsystem on “Losing My Edge”, the group Sexual Harrassment released this LP and a few singles in the ’80s before disappearing. Just like nobody would get away with such a problematic band name today, the music is the sort of pervy electro-funk that could only have come out of the ’80s underground. Not that there hasn’t been countless knockoffs of this sort of sleaze since the electroclash era, but this is a genuine original. It fits nicely with the Maxx Mann reissue Dark Entries put out last year as well as proto-techno classics like “Sharevari”, and some of the more minimal Prince-related projects, with Vanity 6 coming to mind. Some of it is just plain hilarious, like the should-be gym classic “Exercise Your Ass Off”, which sounds like a goof that came together in a single afternoon, in the best way. This reissue includes the band’s two post-album singles, including the self-explanatory “We Want Prince”, which cleverly crams tons of song titles into its verses, and the sly, salacious “These Are The Things That I Like”.
February 4, 2021 at 6:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Wolf Eyes/Blank Hellscape: split 12″
Wolf Eyes’ side of this split 12″ (“Winter Sunday”) mostly consists of crackling, broken electronics, sometimes swinging like a rusty hinge, sometimes developing a lurching beat, which ends up getting ground into sludge. Nate Young’s voice eventually appears, then appears to melt inside the sluggish looping rhythms. Inzane Johnny lets out a startling cry on a horn, although it doesn’t pierce through the gloop too much, and seems to join the same sort of decomposing cycle as the rest of the sounds. Fun stuff, but in all honestly, Wolf Eyes are totally blown out of the water by the Blank Hellscape side, “Concrete Walls”. The trio are from Austin and they have a few releases to their name, including a 2019 LP on Diseased Tapes, but I was unaware of them until this release. Heavy death industrial that you can actually dance to, with gut-shaking beats framing the piercing feedback and lacerating screams. Halfway through, the harsh noise fades away, and the kick drum heartbeat slows down, then gets blasted out with thick, evil sunrays and one of the group members delivers a barely audible anti-capitalist monologue. Eventually the feedback starts shredding in measured bursts in between kick drum thuds, and it all fades out just as it seems like it could get taken to another level. I can’t even remember the last time I saw a noise show in some cruddy basement, but this record is making me realize how much I miss it.
February 3, 2021 at 5:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Staffers: In the Pigeon Hole tape
Ryan McKeever is the frontman, guitarist, and songwriter of the Washington, DC-based
Staffers. The group play a scrappy but spirited brand of hook-heavy post-punk which at times brings to mind certain aspects of Country Teasers, Oh Sees, and poppier Siltbreeze and In the Red bands. Saxophone, pedal steel, and toy piano add some color to the fuzzy guitars, and tracks like “Fuck the Brixton” (an ode to a shitty bar) are full of character and swaggering charm. “Jeremy” is the soaring climax, but “Getting Thinner” is also an anxiety-riddled highlight. As nervy as the album gets, it all winds down with a bitter country lament, “Just Another Tuesday”.
February 2, 2021 at 8:10 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Keleketla!: Keleketla! Remixes
The Coldcut-assisted South African/British collective gets the
remix treatment, largely keeping the messages of freedom and independence intact while varying the rhythms. Machinedrum’s mix of “Papua Merdeka” preserves Benny Wenda’s plea for help from Indonesia’s genocidal takeover of Papua, while adding some atmospheric breakbeats. Adrian Sherwood’s On-U Sound works magic on “Freedom Groove”, dubbing the Watts Prophets’ scream for humanity’s freedom and making more room for Tony Allen’s righteous drumming, the Antibalas horns, and other elements. Detroit’s DJ Stingray turns the gqom heater “Future Toyi Toyi” into a deconstructed don’t-say-electro banger, actually coming closer to post-industrial. Skee Mask’s “Swift Gathering” is ambient drum’n’bass with precision-engineered but full-of-life breakbeats and lush, gorgeous textures. Doesn’t sound a think like the original, mind. Floyd Lavine adds a smidgen of acid to his Afro-house mix of “Papua Merdeka”, and Esa does both deep house and Afro-synth interpretations of “Shepherd Song”. Henrik Schwarz and Project Pablo also do some smooth work on the house side. Of the two versions of the Yugen Blakrok’s poetic showcase “Crystallise”, J Saul Kane’s is by far the most bugged out, truly wonky in the best way. Jungle Drummer’s “5&1” is another incredibly organic-sounding drum’n’bass track, and Mr Raoul K cools things down with the abstract, simmering “Broken Light”.
February 2, 2021 at 6:33 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
AntiHamlet/Szdanik Tuuutiitak: split tape
Yet another absurdly limited tape from Psy-Fiction Recordings’ Alexey Nakhodkin, the first side is taken up by AntiHamlet’s “Electric Throne”, a vibrating buzz-drone which gradually gets sharper and noisier until it gains a sort of reverberating attack. Some interruptions trip it up a bit, but then it gets right back into its dirty fluctuations, while seeming basically lodged in place. It’s very monotonous and doesn’t go anywhere but I love it. Later on it seems to catch an electrical fire yet somehow resists getting totally singed and keeps fluttering, thrashing, and crackling. After a while, though, all that’s left is an intensely hissing signal that just can’t quite get extinguished, until it finally bips out at the end. On the other side, Szdanik Tuuutiitak’s “Transparent Alphabet” is a more lonesome organ drone that wavers in the moonlight and trudges in distortion, then gradually disassociates and becomes a ghost. After nearly disappearing, it switches to a more haunted drone, one that sounds more like captured souls.
February 1, 2021 at 10:58 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Szdanik Tttk/Mexika/A. Kustarnik/Vin Rar: split tape
Limited to 5 copies, this 90-minute tape showcases 4 different aliases of Psy-Fiction Recordings’ prolific owner, Alexey Nakhodkin. Szdanik Tuuutiitak (in slightly abbreviated form) starts this shindig off with what could be grainy loops of at least 5 calliopes playing at once, with faint melodies managing to poke their way out but nothing really changing apart from the tape speed at a few points. The Mexika piece starts out extremely minimal and sounds like a distant furnace that you think is either strangely humming out a melody or your brain’s playing tricks on you, then a louder, more distinct vibration buzzes in. Some more irritated screeching emerges, but then somehow this plunges into a bucket of blue fluid and glitches/freezes for a while. Eventually a swarm of harmonicas cut in, some whirring out with distortion, but generally revolving around the same beehive. Peridically it crumbles and mutes a bit, but then comes back slurrier than ever. At one point it feels like it’s basically been ground into dust, but it crawls back slightly before the side ends. A. Kustarnik, on the second side, is guitar-based, with wayward twangs and clangs splayed across a wasteland. Gradually it seems to lift away from the guitar-based source material, with more vibrations, distortions, and just a creeping ominousness. Like the end of the first side, it gets super smudged and cruddy by the end. After this is Vin Rar, maybe the artist’s most playful, minimal synth-esque project. Bubbly tones quickly whizzle around like a pinwheel, while a drum machine patiently drips away underneath. Like the rest of the tape, there’s periods where it seems like nothing is changing much, but it does get out of wack, getting brighter, less busy, slowing down, piling back in, etc. Even though it doesn’t really progress, it does seem stuck in the same fluttering moment of joy.
January 31, 2021 at 10:32 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Yasuyuki Uesugi: Psychosis Is A Condition In Which Nerve Cells Can No Longer Tolerate Defects tape
12 copies of
this tape exist, making it one of the larger pressings on Russian label
Psy-Fiction Recordings, which usually releases tapes in editions of about 5 copies each. It’s also one of the few releases on the label created by someone other than multi-monikered founder Alexey Nakhodkin, and one of the more professional-looking tapes I’ve seen from the label. Noise artist
Yasuyuki Uesugi has released dozens of albums since 2019 (!) and they’re all deeply psychological, filled with titles related to mental health, suffering, and the abuse of experimental substances intended as forms of medication. The tracks on this tape reflect a never-ending vortex of confusion, dissatisfaction, and severe migraines, and all of them are basically 4-minute vacuum cleaner drones with slightly varied effects on them. The second side definitely has more variation, as there’s more of a swirl to these tracks, and more of a psychedelic tinge. “My Failures Always Stimulate the Brain” is harsher and more cutting with spaceship oscillations fluttering underneath, and “People Trapped In Social Mechanisms” seems more like a tub filled with bubbling acid. All of the tracks basically sound like the artist is setting the controls a certain way and just letting it run for several minutes, but they all feel like being captured at a certain state, and the pieces on the second half seem more agitated, more stimulated, a bit more removed from reality, but also more alive.
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