The Answer Is In The Beat

Scott Avery: Dark Side of Mars 12″ (48208 World Publishing, 2024)

September 9, 2024 at 9:34 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The second EP by Scott Avery is a concept record about an android/Martian/human hybrid from the future who crash landed in Detroit in 1992 during a time machine malfunction. Inspired by the burgeoning techno scene, he creates his own music, and this is the result. “The Horizon” is a suspenseful yet also motivational track that takes up the entire A-side. “Dark Side of Mars” is a shorter, more stripped-down remix of “The Horizon” that keeps the vibe but removes the suspenseful strings. “Dark Matter” is the best overall, the bassline sets it up and the chords just elevate it to a blissful state.

DJ Resurgence: Bass Motivator EP 12″ (Global Electronic Music, 2024)

September 8, 2024 at 9:41 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

DJ Resurgence is the new moniker of Kris Harris, formerly known as DJ Surgeon. He’s released music on Databass and Cratesavers, worked with Scan 7, and is a veteran of the Detroit jit and electro scene. This is the fifth release on the recently formed Global Electronic Music imprint, and it is a deadly shot of pure electro. All of it is solid, but the bullet track is “The Essence”, which says everything it needs to with a robot voice repeating “313” and a human voice declaring “I’m the essence of electro”. Following in that theme, “You Not Ready” reminds you that “electro is alive”. “Chop It” has such a fun bassline that just flows like a wave fit for surfing, and “Get Out My Mix” is a steady dancefloor electro cut with a warning about a “paranoid universe” at the end.

David F. Friedman: The Best of David F. Friedman (Modern Harmonic, 2024)

September 1, 2024 at 2:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This isn’t a conventional soundtrack release. It’s actually a collection of trailers and audio from movies by David F. Friedman, who was infamous for B-movies, exploitation, and sexploitation films. A DVD is included showing the trailers in their full glory, and they are definitely not safe for kiddies and conservatives. But the CD is mostly playable on the air, it’s filled with campy music and funny voiceovers ripe for sampling. The movies all sound horrendous but fascinating. “The Headmistress” takes a weird turn. “The Acid Eaters” is everything you could ask for from an exploitation movie trailer. “Space Thing” is a funny sci-fi erotica trailer. “The Pick-Up” has some amazing drumming, and so does “The Masterpiece”. “Amateur Night” is an instrumental sleaze-funk track (but it still has a sort of tinny movie trailer quality). Lots of filthy fun to be heard/seen here.

Fire-Toolz: Breeze (self-released, 2024)

August 20, 2024 at 8:47 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The new Fire-Toolz album comes after Angel Marcloid’s move to a nice house by a lake an hour West of Chicago, and it feels like an interpretation of what happens when a weirdo from a busy city moves into a safe suburban neighborhood. You can almost imagine the visuals of someone in a full corpsepaint black metal outfit mowing the lawn and planting flowers in the yard, greeting the old lady who lives next door. There is something of a domestic, controlled atmosphere to these songs, yet there’s also a heavier presence of death metal growling and crunchy guitar shredding. “Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window 2 Window” starts out sounding almost like Jesu with extra IDM glitches, then Cole Pulice’s sax smooths it out. Breaking from the metal-inspired intensity of most of the tracks, “Sibling Sun, Sibling Moon, White Concrete Steeped In Celestial Light” flows between dark ambient, new age, and eventually cosmic Americana. “A Considerate Amount of Pining” throws noise-bombs and rattling breakcore drums onto the ground, and drifts away from rhythm, ending up one of the album’s more sprawling, body-escaping tracks. “The Pain-Body (Child Synergy Tears)” also has a bit of a Jesu vibe at first, before it escalates into an emo anthem. There’s just an amazing duality throughout this album, it’s chaotic and destructive and outwardly expressive but still controlled and balanced in its own way.

Earth Ball: It’s Yours LP (Upset the Rhythm, 2024)

August 18, 2024 at 5:49 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

British Columbian group Earth Ball are a quintet who play heavy, noisy, improvisatory music that doesn’t feel constrained by any category. Opener “Moon FM” is like a Bardo Pond-style heavy psych jam but with skronking saxophone replacing some of the distortion. And then “Antifreeze” is the type of free jazz where it’s like a spirit is making the musicians contort their bodies to force all these erratic sounds and movements out, before a swarm of noisy guitars take over, along with some almost shamanic shouting. “Through & Through” doesn’t get as intense, it kind of stalks and scorches but doesn’t combust into chaos. “A Need to Cool Down” seems like it’s meant to throw your brain multiple directions at once. The drums stumble and collapse, the panned guitars sound like machines being smacked and they’re constantly shooting out sparks, and both vocalists are bounding at you and trying to corner you. And then it rides into this peppy garage rock rhythm, taking flight after it seemed like it was going to fall out of a tree at first. “Flash in the Pan” seems to land on its pounding rhythm after flailing around in a swamp, and ends up with this squonky sax-drenched “Poptones” groove. “Hollowgrama” is another barely contained free jazz splatter which eventually does manage to settle down and make sense of itself. Earth Ball’s unbounded, free expression deserves to be played at the highest possible volume so that their unnaturally high energy levels are felt by your entire body.