August 9, 2017 at 11:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
HOM: A$X LP
Seattle’s Ashley P. Svn recorded this LP of hardware-driven techno tracks, recorded live and filled with psychic energy. There’s only 3 tracks here, and they flow where the spirit takes them, bubbling and fizzing and churning and doing anything but fall into predictable patterns. Following the aimless (not an insult) journey of “Xanoptor” (probably not related to Xanopticon) taking up the entirety of the A side, “Xeremonial” is a bit more plugged into the mainframe, with busier beats, deeper bass, trippier delay, and more hypnotic sequences. “Xyn” is even more mental, upping the acid quotient and spraying everything with more mind-tazering effects. I love how ’90s-yet-modern this sounds. Truly enrapturing.
August 9, 2017 at 10:47 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Abandoned Footwear: 108 Trees LP
This is the debut LP by Abandoned Footwear, a project from Oakland which has been playing live for several years now. Its two members are Michael Buchanan of space-industrial-drone collective Nommo Ogo and Jay Fields, best known as breakcore/acid/IDM producer Exillon. This project is somewhere in between the two. Very spacious and ethereal, with chilly, foggy synths over steadily pumping beats. “Song 3” is caustic and uncomfortable, like alien probing set to a beat. “Song 4” is slower and less propulsive, and a whole lot more mournful, feeling like a tearful observance of a dying world. “Song 6” has a tiny bit more of a pulse to it, but otherwise explore similar terrain. A really exceptional EP of thoughtful, non-club techno.
August 9, 2017 at 9:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Spencer & Saginaw: Real Talk 12″ single
Following the success of Shigeto’s “Detroit Pt II” single on his new Portage Garage Sounds label, he gets even deeper and dirtier on the label’s second release, a collaboration with Bill Spencer under the name Spencer & Saginaw. This one doesn’t have the jazziness of “Detroit Pt II”, but it has a heavier, cloudier beat, along with some uncredited words of wisdom about life, specifically life in Detroit. You know you’re going to die someday, so do your best and people will fuck with you. The second side includes the instrumental version of the track (for daytime radio broadcasting or clubgoers with sensitive ears), and then there’s an 11-minute “AmbACID Version”, which completely dismantles the track and lets in float in the open sky, with a hint of acid burbling away down below. Truly an incredible record, surpassing the label’s first release and boding well for its future output. Also, the 12″ comes with a sheet of fake blotter paper, similar to Plastikman’s
Sheet One, and there’s another card saying “Portage Garage Sounds does not condone the use of illegal substances with this art object” (hahahahahahahaha). This record isn’t available on the label’s
website yet, so for now you’ll have to hit up a Detroit record store to get it.
August 6, 2017 at 2:16 pm | Posted in Reviews | 1 Comment
Voigt/465: Slights Still Unspoken (Selected Recordings 1978-1979)
Voigt/465 were a short-lived Australian post-punk group who only recorded one album, one single, and a smattering of additional songs. This CD gathers all of the released tracks plus some unreleased ones (and the digital download adds a few more, including a Faust cover). It opens with “State”, the A-side of their single, which was a pretty solid, driving post-punk tune which got some attention from John Peel. After that, nothing about this band is remotely conventional or predictable. Rae Byrom sounds like Siouxsie but weirder, and does all sorts of strange vocal acrobatics. Songs like “Voices A Drama” start out as giddy, arty post-punk and get stranger and stranger, throwing in noise sections and getting caught in quasi-operatic minimalist cycles. The keyboards are cold and primitive-sounding, far away from the chipper organ sounds usually employed by rock bands up to that point. There’s also a heavy element of improvisation, especially during the discordant 7-minute epic “F1”. The liner notes discuss how nobody understood the band and they were completely out of sync with what was going on at the time, which is why they didn’t last too long, and the music is certainly difficult, but obviously it’s a bit easier to appreciate and admire several decades after the fact. Also, I can’t help but notice that the keyboard part during the middle of “And the Following Page”, a previously unreleased track recorded in 1978, bears a resemblance to the bridge of Soft Cell’s version of “Tainted Love”, which was recorded a few years after.
August 4, 2017 at 10:44 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Ichinen: Dual Craters
Italian techno producers Roberto Bosco and Kiny teamed up to form this mysterious duo, debuting with a 12″ last year and now letting this full-length disperse into the world. This is kind of a world unto its own — it’s very atmospheric and echoey, but it’s not dub(-techno) or ambient, and it’s rarely steady enough to be techno proper. The beats are sporadic and slippery; and they feel like walking the surface of a planet that isn’t quite solid, but somehow it doesn’t need to be, because there isn’t nearly as much gravity as on earth, so you’re propelled with minimal steps. Some of the sounds seem to loop in concentric circles with others, but the tempos still make it hard to seem what direction everything’s going in. But it’s definitely going somewhere, and you feel transported. It’s soothing, eerie, and incredibly alien at the same time. “Strangely Comforting”, as one of the track titles puts it. Vladislav Delay is the only point of comparison I can really come up with. It’s just really immersive and unique and beautiful and you should
listen to it.
August 2, 2017 at 10:51 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
X.Y.R.: Labyrinth LP
Russia’s X.Y.R. has released several tapes on labels like Singapore Sling, Constellation Tatsu, and Not Not Fun, and now the latter is the home of the project’s debut LP. The album contains six tracks of gentle, unhurried drifting, sometimes with soft vocals, and sometimes with rushing waves (or fuzzy static). It’s relaxing, but it’s also a bit lonely, and it’s not afraid to let some rough edges show. If it’s somehow possible to do yoga underwater while listening to music, this might be a good soundtrack for that.
August 2, 2017 at 9:23 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Tobias.: Eyes In the Center
3rd solo album from Tobias Freund, who has been making techno in one form or another since the early ’90s and is now associated with the mighty Berghain club and its Ostgut Ton label. This is an album of explorations rather than straightforward club tracks. “Cr 24” is a rough, homemade electro track which takes a few seconds to boot up. “Autopoiesis” opens with scattered voices, which soon form waves and then give way to an almost footwork-sounding rhythm. “Blind Mass” is a moody piece with some breakbeats shuffling away underneath, but “Syndrome” is where we finally get to solid 4/4 beats. But even then, the claps play a sort of half-time game, making things seem to move slower than they are. “Single Minded” is another weird half-time dub-sludge creeper. “In Between” is an ambient piece which sounds like spending a night in a slightly eerie, possibly haunted, but generally safe forest. After that, we get various shades of rough electro beats surrounded by lush, spacey sounds. “Geometric” has a very tiny trace of rave synths under its crunchy beat and shadowy drifting. The clapping, sputtering “Eyes In the Center” is another highlight.
July 30, 2017 at 7:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Iguana Moonlight: Wild Palms tape
This enchanting tape features synth tones surrounding by lots of rushing waves and squawking seagulls. The synths sound lonely but also a tiny bit playful, especially in how some of the notes swoop a bit, and they bring to mind Fumio Miyashita’s early ’80s material. There’s nothing harsh or even really dark about this album, but somehow it doesn’t seem very new age. It doesn’t seem like meditation or healing music. It sounds like, well, being stuck on an island, and feeling both free and trapped. It’s celebratory but also a little scared. It’s fun overall, though.
July 29, 2017 at 12:55 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Spookfish: Black Hole
The mysterious Spookfish has been haunting the tape underground for years now, and this is his debut CD release. Detached, fragmentary electro-acoustic lo-fi pop which drifts in an out of lyrics and song structures. Three of the songs are included in two versions each; the acoustic verison of “Black Hole”, all lonesome Microphones-y strumming, chirping crickets, and bummed out Lou Barlow vocals, opens the album before segueing into the proper version of the song. Here, it ends up being a frazzled collage of woozy beats, bitcrunched explosions, and wayward drifting. The contrast provides a startling, fascinating look into the artist’s creative process. “Moon Viewing Road” is also preceded by an acoustic version, which takes the form of a dusty drone, before crunchy beats and gelatinous synths are added for the main version. Following the short acoustic ballad “Everything is Moving So Fast”, “Car Horn (Extended)” is a John Fahey-like solo acoustic journey which shows that this guy isn’t just about weird lo-fi indie pop. “Black Ghost with Red Eyes” is forest-dwelling indie folk with a hint of tape corrosion and minimal keyboards.
July 23, 2017 at 9:04 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Andy Haas: Taballah II
I honestly don’t know much about Andy Haas other than that he was in Martha and the Muffins and he’s worked with several prominent downtown NYC folk. And that he also plays the didgeridoo, but not on this album. This one has saxophone and taal tarang (an electronic tabla) as well as lots of hissy, fuzzy electronic processing. The pulsating electronics remind me of Muslimgauze a bit, but the saxophone drifts off into a different space. There’s some intense sputtering and transforming with the electronic effects here, yet it doesn’t disrupt the saxophone journeying. Sort of space-age, sort of fourth-world, even a tiny bit industrial, but definitely not like anything else.
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