May 17, 2023 at 5:28 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment
Cheryl E. Leonard & Wobbly: Multiple Park LP
demonstrates how the natural world and technology respond to each other. Cheryl E. Leonard’s instruments use bones, shells, sticks, and other found materials, and Wobbly has extensively explored machine listening generated music on his Monitress releases. Most of these pieces were recorded live on Over the Edge, Negativland’s long-running radio show currently hosted by Wobbly. “Bowed Spine” seems to be constructed from the instruments on the album’s cover, with lots of extended scraping and bowing noises enhanced by far-out electronic treatments. “Icicle Tracking” is a lot easier on the ears, with dripping icicles and flowing water put through an electronic filter so that they seem like they could be generated by synths, but also clearly sound like their source material. “Ostrasidian” uses, rocks, shells, fish vertebrae, chopsticks, and marbles, beginning with a lot of thick, rolling motions and eventually lifting into surreal sound-spaces when the electronics kick in. “Multiple Park” is a half-real, half-imagined flock of birds and swarm of bees flying through a constantly morphing environment, sonically traveling through fields, forests, industrial landscapes, and high tides alike. Somehow a trace of a dub bassline echoes before the record draws to a close.
May 10, 2023 at 7:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Shalom: Sublimation
So
this album grabbed my attention because the artist went to Rutgers, I’m guessing far after I left New Brunswick. She even samples an NJ Transit train announcement at one point during the album, right before a song called “Train Station”, so for that reason the album connected with me in a similar way that the book
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao did. Musically, it’s hook-heavy alternative pop and indie rock with contemporary production (by Ryan Hemsworth) and direct lyrics about anxiety, pressure, and existential crisis. A lot of these songs seem to express the desire to be someone else, yet also seek validation at the same time (on the deceptively upbeat “Happenstance”). The middle of the album seems to concentrate on songs about missing someone, loss, heartache. “Bodies” contains the line “send me to the broken person repair shop”, and in “Lighter”, the album’s standout, she pleads “take off this weight please make me lighter”.
May 7, 2023 at 6:29 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Creative Technology Consortium: Panoramic Colorsound
The
300th release on Dark Entries is by a Chicago trio closely related to the supergroup Mutant Beat Dance, sharing 2 of its members (Melvin Oliphant aka Traxx and Jason Letkiewicz aka Steve Summers; Beau Wanzer is absent, Andrew Bisenius is present). Much like the Mutant Beat Dance albums, this is a gigantic sprawling beast that takes up multiple pieces of vinyl and runs through ideas pulling from multiple genres. The first track, “A Retro Vice”, has bouncing beats and Italo basslines, as well as police sirens in the background, the type that make you assume they’re actually coming from outside your window in the distance. There’s other tracks halfway between club jams and ’80s cop show soundtracks, but then there’s the Fripp-like guitars and slowly rolling landscape of “Beautifully Polluted Sunset”. “Complicity in the City” is like “Ghost Rider” sprinting sideways, and “Catastrophe” has buzzing electro-industrial vibes, but a lot of this is darker, prowling down the alley music. “High Altitude Meditation” is a trippy new age reflection that seems perfectly placed right around the middle of the album. “Nyte Sequence” has an upbeat rhythm that seems like it could launch into any number of ’80s synth pop hits, yet it just seems to race right past all of those shop fronts and follow its own intuition. “The Descent” is far from a typical, formulaic club cut, but it has an addictive synth sequence holding it in place along with electronic hand percussion beats, giving it a sense of propulsion and elevation without the need of a kick drum.
May 6, 2023 at 4:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Kristina Warren: New Suns
is a short album of Octavia Butler-inspired ARP 2500 synth pieces. “Simple Oankali Greeting” is about communication via direct sensation, and its slowly unfolding layers feel like a divine initiation. “Cipher Braid” has crunchier, more industrial textures and feels both like a procession and a slow diffusion. “Unakite Pool” is a slow but steady sequence of immersive bass frequencies, eventually crawling upward until it’s beaming from a mountaintop. “Slip Jigs” is a surprisingly playful robo-waltz which makes a crooked ascent to an unspeakable level of beauty.
May 5, 2023 at 7:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Troikastra: It’s the Door with the Little Stairs
, the trio of Curtis Glatter, DJ Tenshun, and Nathan Hubbard, battle it out on turntables, synths, samples, and drum machines, resulting in messy collages somewhere in between ’90s plunderphonic turntablism and freeform circuit-bent noise jams. The trio’s performances often have a much more cartoonish edge than most experimental improvisation, particularly with the presence of things like the chunky metal guitars and toy piano-sounding scattered notes of “Brief Sojourn Into a Side Alley”. “Two Types” splices different instructional records together to form Frankenstein sentences, evolving from rhythmic tutoring to spiritual advice. “Expectations Are Nigh” is 17 minutes long and somewhat less dense than some of the other pieces, but it also has some of the most aggressive scratching and overt hip-hop sampling. “Sonic Starcases” is frantic noise-jazz with dubby effects and almost modem-like squealing sounds. Lastly, “Blame It On the Casionova” is sort of a drunken stumble home under dark, flanged-out clouds.
May 3, 2023 at 1:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
upsammy: Germ in a Population of Buildings
upsammy delivered a standout set at the beginning of Dekmantel last year, backed by fluid and forest-like visuals from Sjoerd Martens. Her
new album on PAN is a set of electronic ecosystems teeming with beats that scurry like insects, and playfully abstract melodies. Her disguised voice adds a childlike human touch, but it already feels the product of a busy mind; even though the sounds are all electronic, this isn’t something that could’ve been randomly spit out by a machine. It feels both carefully thought out and shaped by nature. It’s glitchy and micro, but it’s also informed by dance and pop production without conforming to those types of structures. Her club tracks were great but this album is where she demonstrates her true artistry.
May 2, 2023 at 11:58 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Octave One: Never On Sunday
Octave One are always a must-see live act whenever they take the stage at Movement, and they’ve continued putting out an exceptional amount of music on their 430 West label (and others like UR and Tresor) since 1990. Previewed by a 12″ last year, their newest album is named after their longstanding
Never On Sunday alias. Not quite a typical Detroit techno record, it’s somewhere in between a futuristic pop album, an industrial soundscape, and an international club showcase. “Enterstella” is a detached sci-fi intro, and then “Contemplate” and “Price We Pay” (both with vocalist Karina Mia) apply complex sonics to electropop songs. “Soon After” is sort of like dark gothic cathedral electro, and “A Moment of Truth” could easily be a Depeche Mode instrumental (but not anything like “The Policy of Truth”). “Metal Forest” evokes a magical environment, and “Mona” is a more beat-driven downtempo extension of the same vibe. The second half of the album is all instrumentals, edits, and remixes of tracks from the first half, and they’re often way more club-friendly (“Tiers” is really the only straightforward dance track at the beginning). Orbital’s “Price We Pay” is swell but Giorgia Angiuli arguably does more with the song, stretches it out and takes it in a headier direction. Skream turns “The Bearer” into a tunneling pounder, while P41 and Octave One themselves leave much of the suspense in.
May 1, 2023 at 7:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Philip D Kick: Off World Tales
One of the originators of footwork jungle
completes a trilogy of EPs for Astrophonica which began in 2018. The seven tracks (plus one “party loop”) are tightly wound tricky rhythms precision engineered to elevate your mind and your body. “Predator” injects spikes of fear thanks to well-timed drum breaks and horror soundtrack strings. “Orbit” is the most junglistic track, and clearly my favorite. “Replicant” has shifting break patterns (half time? double time?) and bubbling acid synths, clearly evoking a sci-fi atmosphere while also showcasing the trippy qualities of the hybrid style. It’s credited as featuring Om Unit (PDK’s alter ego, or the other way around), and it has a bit of the flavor of his
Acid Dub Studies tracks. A lot of the shorter tracks on this release feel far more like DJ tools than fleshed out songs, but the heavier ones carry the bass weight.
April 30, 2023 at 3:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Damian’s Ghost: After Life EP
The first track on
this EP, “Voices”, is one of those tunes where you immediately feel like something remarkable is happening and you’re excited to be witnessing it. It rolls in graciously, and a voice repeating the phrase “I hear voices in my head…” hooks you in, eventually revealing the completion of the thought: “I try not to listen”. There’s some footwork kicks in there, but overall it’s just blissful atmospheric jungle that doesn’t get too heavy. Truly transportive club music, something that’s going to trigger feelings when I hear it in the future. “Look at the Lights” is a pretty mellow, pleasant roller with a Kool Keith sample. “High Places” could easily be mixed out of the previous track, as the very beginning sounds very similar, but then it reveals some tighter, choppier drum rolls and more expressive synth pads. When the Amens kick in, it’s such a massive rush of dread, ecstasy, and melancholy all at once. Like finally having to take the plunge and face something you’ve been trying to put off and avoid for so long. Fortunately listening to it is a much more enjoyable experience, but it still points to something emotionally heavy. “In the Night” is a straight-through rave cruiser, which has some tense synths but otherwise feels a bit lighter than some of the other tracks here. Solid EP all around.
April 27, 2023 at 7:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Yorobi: Eden EP
Amsterdam’s Yorobi previously played at Rupture and released a record with Tim Reaper, and now she’s on Sneaker Social Club with
her first EP. Her tracks tend to have tight, snappy breaks, occasionally with unexpected sounds poking through, like whatever those sharp paddle-thwacks during “Stabs” are. Unlike the first side, the B-side isn’t jungle at all. “Model Patient” is glitchy electro with a garage swing to it, and “Rhode to Nowhere” is a cavernous journey with busy polyrhythmic percussion and smooth, reverby melodies. Then finally “Eden” sounds like a coded transmission from an invisible realm beyond the pale. A hugely inventive release from a producer clearly interested in reading between the lines of what’s considered club music.
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