November 29, 2020 at 1:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: New Neighborhoods
Following last year’s much-fanfared reissue of Ernest Hood’s
Neighborhoods, Freedom to Spend has compiled a benefit compilation featuring several current artists composing pieces incorporating field recordings from their environments. Like the original album, these selections drift between being unfiltered field recordings and passages of music. Sometimes they’re combined in crafty ways, like how the clicking and droning slowly rise above the scraping and dog panting of Ka Baird’s “West End”, with a more melodic part gradually emerging like the sun. Lieven Martens’ piece seems to consist entirely of field recordings, from dogs barking, possibly in a fairground setting, to transit whirrs. The brilliant Nailah Hunter plucks a forlorn harp melody over the rushing waters of Yosemite. Jefre Cantu Ledesma turns in one of the more innocent-sounding pieces, filled with birdsong, some sharp mewling, soft chiming, and yes, children talking. Melanie Velarde’s “NYC Files” features a cluster of Riley-ish organs along with a disorienting amount of honking car horns and ambulance sirens — just another day in the Big Apple, basically. Barraco Barner’s piece is a lovely one, with drum machines that seem to tick out of time but stay in sequence, and just lovely Durutti-ish guitar melodies, all surrounded by outdoor sounds. Much sparser is Sugai Ken’s piece, which is seven minutes of a bell (or pot, or other metal object) being struck slowly. Like A Villain’s “What’s happening to me” is accurately titled — the vocals are wordless puffs of uncertainty and tentative syllables, but sung rather than sounding like incoherent stammering, and the music is rich and light at the same time, feeling like a sort of transformation.
November 28, 2020 at 4:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
v/a: Hyperextension: A Not Yet Remembered Records Compilation
Not Yet Remembered Records is a new label founded by precenphix and Cos BV, two Pennsylvania-based artists who have been making IDM and various other styles of electronic music since the IUMA and mp3.com eras, if not earlier.
This compilation is a preview of various releases they’re set to release (some are out already). It starts out with some tracks that are along the steady, acid-tinged, mixable sort of IDM. Tleb’s “Westerly” is pretty isolationist ambient, but not entirely removed from humanity. Stormy Acres’ “Roasted Sanguine” is just as creepy as it sounds, and it pounds steadily without going in on an attack. Wolfe’s “Hyperextension” is an always-welcome collision of soft, innocent melodies and harsh, jagged beats which sound like an electrocution set to rhythm. precenphix’s “Prazosin House Lip” is a more bubbling acid techno track, until it switches to more crunchy, bristling beats. After an ambient piece by Blush To The Snow which is failing to rise above the lawnmower outside my apartment at the moment, Orbiscorpus’ “Giver” is an amazing track with ethereal vocals and heavy, cold drum machines clacking away. More darkwave than witch house, but could work as both. Séance’s “Dead Channel” is a suspenseful hard d’n’b track with horror movie pianos which absolutely rips once the breakbeats fully kick in. Blinkhorn’s “Some Day” is a bit of a breather after the album’s most intense track, and then “Angels From Andromeda” by Cerebral is a 12-minute mini-epic which flows from more fizzy, acidic electro-IDM until a gorgeous melody stops it in its tracks, and it moves into a more uplifting second half.
November 27, 2020 at 1:03 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
2Lanes: Baby’s Born To Fish... / Impish Desires 12″
The
latest single from DJ, producer, and promoter 2Lanes features an all-star cast of Detroit musicians. “Baby’s Born To Fish...” has a tough, industrious bumping beat and lush, billowing synths and piano clouds. Taking center stage is the fantastic Kesswa, who delivers hopeful lyrics about making it through the daily grind, even though it’s frustrating to be meeting deadlines and never certain of what’s going to happen next. The bottom line is “I’m gonna be fine.” Ian Fink, Shigeto, and John F.M. also contribute to the track, but Kesswa shines brightest. Easily one of the most inventive, addictive dance tracks of the year. On the other side, “Impish Desires” (with Ji Hoon) is some raw electro that swerves and twitches. Not so much the beats, which stay locked in, but the synths and dialog samples (“you’re in great danger”) all seem designed to make you constantly look over your shoulder. And then a fog-shrouded flute solo adds a different shade of trippiness to it all.
November 25, 2020 at 5:20 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
In-House Pharmacy: We Are Electronics and Piano Only
Lauren Bousfield and Naomi Mitchell recorded
this EP using just modular synth and piano, and while that might seem like a simple description, these are still highly complex, explosive pieces. Definitely not as pop-minded or cathartic as Bousfield’s recent masterpiece
Palimpsest, and quite looser — opener “Field of Wires” almost feels like a sort of jam session, with breaks rumbling far underneath the stomping kick and classical piano melodies. “A Poem Recited From The Beak Of A Raven” is much more destructive, vaguely starting out kosmische and then bursting forward with very raw, feedback-y breakbeats and twisted analog textures. Meanwhile the piano rumbles along and keeps up the suspense. “At Dusk, On Television” has a momentary break from the noise so that the piano playing shines through more. “Tiny Claws” forgoes beats, and is instead a tense, unnerving duet for waltzing piano and harsh, buzzing feedback which seems more structured the more you pay attention.
November 22, 2020 at 11:32 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kanyon: s/t
Don’t have a whole lot of info on this one, but it’s on
Color Plus’s label, so that’s enough of a recommendation. The
cover art hints at some sort of black metal demo, but the tracks are various shades of post-club styles. “Straight Ether” is gently shifting breakbeats with relaxing mellow-AFX textures. “Vroom” is much more active and playful, with motoric breaks that prompt you to skip around the room. “Patternmaster” is a much trickier, tenser drum’n’bass-ish track, all nervous, choppy breaks and no release. “Number One” has a sequence of bubbly tones that are so soothing it might make you overlook how complex the beats are. “Six Track” is another track filled with tough, crunchy breaks, and after that it’s time for a pause to refresh, so “Tldr” is a gentle two-minute bath with some squishy synths toward the end. The short, slow-motion snow trudge “Morbid” serves as another resting period in between longer, breakier, busier tracks, with “Green” being a foggy swirl of crashing Amens and half-buried woodwinds.
November 21, 2020 at 6:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Tim Reaper: Cityscapes EP
One of the longtime regulars of
Blog to the Oldskool, Tim Reaper has been absolutely slaying for years, both as a DJ and producer. His
first EP for Lobster Theremin is appropriately titled Cityscapes, and from the title track it just brings vibes of cruising through a city at night, endless hours at clubs, just letting yourself go. Totally swoon-worthy but also really vicious, heavy drum programming. “Sequence 2” is ecstasy-shot techno rather than jungle, but carries the same feelings and doesn’t sound a bit out of place. “Make It Real” is one of those tracks that immediately sounds familiar, just a torrent of brutal drums and mystical melodies — nothing that hasn’t really been done circa 1995 but still just a timeless sound. Instant classic. “(I Can) Feel It” blends atmospheric jungle with early ’90s hardcore, mixing thumpy kicks with filtered breaks, and showering it with gorgeous synths. Super lovely EP, and just a tip of the iceberg from a massively talented and prolific producer.
November 20, 2020 at 6:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
X-Altera: New Harbinger EP
Ann Arbor legend Tadd Mullinix started the X-Altera alias a few years ago, exploring a fusion of drum’n’bass and breakbeat techno nodding to mid-’90s acts like Jacob’s Optical Stairway. After an amazing debut album on Ghostly, his new EP arrives on leading U.K. hardcore revivalist label Sneaker Social Club, and it’s another fantastic set of ever-twisting rhythms and lush, fluid textures. Combining several elements from jungle’s golden era, there’s time-stretched ragga vocals, atmospheric sax flutters, heavy yet relaxing bass, and some choice nature samples. The vibes are super positive and the beats constantly trek down different paths while keeping you on your feet. It’s just a beautiful, timeless sound and few, if any, are doing it better.
November 19, 2020 at 8:32 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
96 Back: Sugilite
One of CPU’s primary electro alchemists makes the leap to
Local Action with one of his most advanced, club-forward releases yet. “Half a Reach” is the type of ultra-detailed IDM which doesn’t abandoned the funk and places an equal emphasis on breakbeat buggery, haunting melodies, and chippy synth tones. “Hot Tip” starts out a little close to the Bug’s mutated dancehall, but gets more cybernetic from there. “Inclination Fresh” is more funky IDM that always moves in different directions but doesn’t get it twisted. “Waif” has much more of a heavier electro beat, but it’s still filled with corkscrews, drop-outs, and change-ups. Way excited to hear where he goes from here.
November 18, 2020 at 6:36 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Solypsis: Is This Breakcore?
Asking a literal question of whether his music belongs in the scene he’s been associated with for decades, Solypsis’s
recent EP also dredges up the never truly answered question of what breakcore really is in the first place. There’s always been so many different approaches to it, usually revolving around fast, complex, distorted breaks, but no real set-in-stone rules or guidelines, which is why it’s always been so fascinating. The first track, “Nostalgia Plunderer”, definitely fills the quota of noisy breaks and heavy kicks, but “Fuck It (Ver2)” is closer to industrial techno which just gets more distorted and terror-filled. “Crumbs of 2003” has a neat trick of combining complex d’n’b breakbeats with slow industrial kicks which accelerate at times. “Break Gourds” is another in-the-red throttler with breaks and kicks so flame-smothered they’re crispy. Final track “I Don’t Make Breakcore” is some of the most hellish drum’n’bass imaginable. To answer the question, I would say yes, because it does have hard, noisy breaks, but also because pushing the limits of the genre has always been an important part of it, and this certainly does that.
November 16, 2020 at 6:37 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Nicolas Bougaïeff: Higher Up The Spiral
Nicolas Bougaïeff’s first album for Mute,
The Upward Spiral, is a grand, ambitious set filled with unpredictable twists and rhythmic shifts. Its
remix album takes these tracks into several further directions, most excitingly when a few experimental drum’n’bass producers take a crack at them. Overlook’s “The Upward Spiral” starts out as a back-alley creeper and then explodes, bringing the shivers like peak techstep. Sam KDC’s “Nexus” plays with the contorted rhythms of the original and ends up with some heavy, breaky terror-techno. Dusty Kid and Benjamin Damage both remix “Thalassophobia”, and both keep the interlocked yet disorienting patterns of the original but add a heavier thump for the clubs. Other mixes tend to retain the grittiness and some of the percolating sequences but make them feel more straightened out. Kosei Fukuda does something different though, turning it into a slower, more measured ambient techno track which could also be heard as very nuanced drum’n’bass. For something more storming and heart-on-sleeve melodic enough to approach trance, but coated in sizzling static, there’s Aoud’s “Listen Carefully to the Heart Beat”. Surprisingly enough, breakcore OG Din-ST appears with a mix of “Nexus” which honestly doesn’t add much to the original, but it’s still nice to see his name pop up. The title track, a collaboration with Private Agenda, concludes the release, and it’s actually a pleasant, sparkly pop song, yet it has all the tempo shifting and rhythmic contortion of Bougaïeff’s album.
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The Answer Is In The Beat 