June 24, 2023 at 3:08 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Meadow Argus: Spool’s Gold tape
The
latest Meadow Argus tape appears on the mighty Hooker Vision, and it’s another set of uneasy, nostalgic loop pieces. There’s a faint rhythm pulsing beneath the beginning of the first side, but that gets flattened out as something stuck in the tape deck curdles away and a sharp CB radio voice cuts through the murk for a moment. It comes back after the organ begins glimmering brighter, but it signals a shift into a more jumbled state, almost like jumping into a tornado for a minute. Later on there’s more aggressive CB radio chatter, especially on the second side, where the voices are played backwards, turning into an even rougher textural element. The hissing tape drone turns more seasick, but after a while it sort of melts into a comforting blanket of sound.
June 12, 2023 at 9:31 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kaizo Slumber: How Are We Feeling Today?
is a switch from atmospheric breaks to digital hardcore, much like Machine Girl’s path from
WLFGRL to
…Because I’m Young Arrogant and Hate Everything You Stand For. Except this one actually has hardcore song lengths (mostly under 2 minutes), and has more explosive gabber kicks along with the distorted punk shouting and fragmented rave synths. This one beats you up in all the right ways. There’s something mannered and precise about every kick, shout, guitar riff, and compressed breakbeat, but it’s all pumped up in the most energetic way possible, and it moves from idea to idea like a low attention span DJ mix with no lulls. “Galaxy Torimoti” is filled with so much rave ecstasy it shatters your brain. “Kaizo Blunder” is only 4 minutes but feels like an odyssey, culminating in a cleansing noise wash, and then followed by a brief collage of fun effects and bonus beats. Massive recommendation.
June 11, 2023 at 2:00 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Scan 7: The Resistance 12″
I picked this up yesterday at Tec-Troit, a free annual techno festival in Corktown, where I heard DJs play mixes of this track multiple times. Originally released on Tresor in 2012, “The Resistance” is as UR as it gets, with “Jaguar”-esque strings and a voice proclaiming “If you can hear this, you are a part of the resistance.” It gets even more inspirational with the words “Know that you are not alone fighting an ongoing battle.” Terrence Parker’s mix adds church organ, though not as wild as the organ Mad Mike was playing during UR’s set last night. UR’s own mix of the track is straight up riot music, with industrial metal guitars and a commanding “get down!” sample.
June 6, 2023 at 8:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
DJ 0.000001: Recombinant Shangaan Mixtape
I miss Shangaan Electro. The
compilation Honest Jon’s put out years ago and the
Nozinja album on Warp were such remarkable, refreshing, creative releases and I was hoping we’d hear more from that particular scene, but there haven’t been any other releases of that magnitude of this type of music. Thankfully people are still making these sounds and pushing it further, even if it isn’t getting much outside exposure. This mixtape features tracks made between 2015 and 2022, and it’s generally glitchier and less vocal-heavy than the earlier Shangaan Electro releases. There’s touches of the playful, sweet melodies from the older tracks, but it’s generally more frantic, with loops that stutter and clatter before racing into the next section. Yet it also feels pretty fluid for a mix of such frenetic music. A sample of Tshetsha Boys’ “Nwa Pfundla” (my favorite track from the 2010 comp) is chewed up and spit out near the beginning of the second side, seemingly as a point of comparison for how the style has evolved since then. The second side in general has a greater presence of harder moments and more intense edits, but still ends up bouncy and playful.
June 4, 2023 at 2:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
NO EYES: Some days i’m completely vulnerable I can feel everything.
For over a decade, Atlanta’s NO EYES has been making remarkable music that points to what breakcore could evolve into. His music is far away from the melancholy atmospheric jungle or watered-down digital hardcore that most people associate with breakcore these days, it’s much more like x.nte’s abrasive, overwhelming data-mashing.
This new album starts out with frustrated footwork jungle that slips and falls on a heavy syrup stream, with guest production by Teklifer DJ Manny. “da wut good” is the overloaded centerpiece, somehow concealing orchestral arrangements/samples inside a glitch tornado. “blay” has this moment where a James Brown drum sample is being bitcrunched, and then it bursts into this sonic boom mindfuzz out of nowhere. Then “going fast” is disorienting panic rap played at 500BPM. NO EYES maxes out all the emotions until everything’s a massive chaotic blur of numbness, and just keeps drilling away because there’s no way to slow down or turn off, only blast into other directions. I love his music so much.
June 3, 2023 at 10:00 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Jo Johnson: The Wave Ahead LP
The title to
the new Jo Johnson LP evokes aquatic imagery as well as sound waves. The electronics flow in ripples, sometimes in a more stately manner, and in more of a curious rush on “Orbit”. “The impossible in the impossible” smooths it out into a more serene wash, but becomes more defined with the upturn of bass synths and smaller, quicker movements which seem like fish swimming underneath. The digital version has a bonus track, “Vigil”, which sounds like a mass of night creatures mourning one who has ascended to the spirit realm.
June 2, 2023 at 7:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
OCB: The Sequel 12″ EP
One of the newest Metroplex releases is this
five-track EP from Moroccan DJ Driss Bennis, aka OCB. I picked this up straight from the Metroplex booth at Movement this year. Even though it’s totally unrelated, to me it brings to mind the Mano de Fuego EP on UR last year, in that it has the unmistakably Detroit techno-electro feel but comes from some place totally different. The first track on here is a continuation of the title track to OCB’s previous release, last year’s
Transhuman X-Press, and it continues on a Kraftwerk-but-Detroit path. “Global Warning” is lush and rainforest-like but also alien, with bird calls and vibraphone-like patterns along with fluidly morphing synth notes. “Syntax Error” is nothing but a locked-in electro groove and glitchy Spean-N-Spell voices, and it needs nothing else. “Translate” channels the bleepier side of Detroit circa Transmat’s early catalog. “But in Time” is a more reflective, midtempo electro track with piano melodies, breakbeats, and scratches.
May 31, 2023 at 7:53 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kool Keith & Haji Outlaw: Keith & Outlaw 7″ single
Preceding an album with Real Bad Man as well as the forthcoming
Black Elvis 2, Kool Keith started off the year with
this single produced by Chicago’s Haji Outlaw. “Kool Kriminal” is a brief single-verse rhyme with typically sleazy lyrics and cinematic production filled with gunshots and movie dialogue samples, almost feeling more like a skit than a song. “Sporty Nights (Uber Eats)” is the highlight, with a Griselda-ish beat made of choppy soul samples and little else, while Keith comes at you from several different angles with as much energy as he can muster these days. He’s been hit or miss for a long time, even if the hits are astoundingly great, but this is pretty decent. The B-side is just the instrumentals (with the dialogue samples intact), and they function well on their own, but of course they’re best heard with Keith rhyming over them.
May 22, 2023 at 9:30 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Pursuit Grooves: 100 Seams
Vanese Smith’s newest release is a tribute to her grandmother, a seamstress, who would have been 100 years old at the time of the album’s production. It thematically resembles Smith’s earlier
91 Fellows release, which, to my ears, completely redefined the concept of dub, to this day I cannot think of any other music that sounds like or captures the same feelings as that record. While that release only sporadically used voices,
100 Seams focuses on spoken poetry, calling back to Smith’s first form of writing before she started emceeing and producing. Lyrics about crafting, creating, and vivid descriptions of materials are scratched turntable-style, making them feel like sonic embroidery. The last PG album,
Mo:Delic Island, was accompanied by visual art presenting strange hybrid fantasy creatures, and this one has a more down-to-earth, nostalgic setting for its verbal illustrations. Some tracks have a house thump, but in PG’s own offbeat way, with the kicks bumping up against thumb pianos and slow claps on “Kitty’s Curtain Panels” and “Woven Memories” being more broken and rattling. “Garner” is more on the hypnotic downtempo tip, and “Seams Together” has some dubby echo causing the delicately ticking beats to vibrate.
May 21, 2023 at 1:42 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Reynols: Peloto Cabras Mulusa Olve LP
This is the
first-time vinyl issue of material originally released on a 1999 cassette. The two 15-minute main tracks are vast, careening, metallic disruptions and vibrations that seem edited down from an endless spell in an echo chamber. “Lavio Peve” is different, more of an early SY drone-disco thing. “Ambres Macia” is an unexpected buzzsaw garage punk blitz that combusts at the end. But the first track especially is just a sprawling, astral travelling wash of sound and it’s worth the journey for this experience.
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