This one opens with harsh, swarming noises which remind me of Astral Social Club, but then the rhythm comes in and it goes in a different direction. Harsh organ drones and scrambled feedback, but also slow, pulsating beats. There does seem to be a reverence to melody, as well as suspenseful pacing, but it’s still intense and blown-out and overpowering. During the lengthier “Masu”, things fall apart and then start phasing back together. The album is filled with flying sparks and shrapnel, and “Salmon Run” is particularly bruising. There’s calmer moments, too, but for a lot of these tracks you might want to wear a helmet while listening. It’s incredible, though.
Here’s an unearthed bit of Detroit techno history. DJ SCSI only released one record in 1997 on electro/ghettotech label D-Bass Records, but the mysterious artist recorded more tracks afterwards, and this EP gathers 4 of them dating from 1997 to 2002. Mostly minimal but busy grooves, with some choppy Bmore-ish breakbeats, and also some electro bounce to it. “Lapdanz” is faster and has some sporadic vocal samples as well as a smidgen of a fat bass tone. “Strictly 4 Da Jitterz” is a faster, more space-age electro track with a racing rhythm created expressly for dancing (of course), pausing a few times to catch breath. A fitting record to kick off DEMF weekend (although I’m skipping it and going to Trip Metal Fest instead).
Moth Eggs is the solo lo-fi bedroom pop project of one Francis Carr Jr., and it’s perfectly at home on OSR Tapes along with people like Zach Phillips (whose “Better As Billy” is covered on this album), Chris Weisman, and Joey Pizza Slice. Carr’s songs sometimes have the angularity of Phillips’, especially tracks like “Puddle Jumper”, but they’re overall closer to bubblegum power-pop, with some nods to glam, classic rock, surf, etc. “Cartoons” has high-pitched alien vocals and cartoon sound effects, and helps set the animated, childlike tone for the album. “Tele-Kiss” is another excited, gee-whiz pop anthem. “Silver Sandz” is longer and slower and definitely not as cheerful. “Low Voltaage Angel” is also around 6 minutes and is riddled with sound effects, mysterious voices, and curious melodies, recalling a more chilled out Cloud Becomes Your Hand. Carr definitely does not have a professionally trained singing voice, so his exuberant but off-key vocals can get kind of grating, but there’s a decent amount of ideas and his gleeful try-anything spirit carries the release.
CE Schneider Topical is the duo of Christina Schneider and Zach Phillips (formerly of the astonishing Blanche Blanche Blanche), both of whom appeared on the most recent Jib Kidder album. Both of them wrote the songs (alone and together), but Schneider wrote most of them and sang them all, in addition to playing guitars and drums. Phillips plays a considerable amount of instruments, including some rusty Wurlitzer organ. The songs are generally under three minutes and have the sort of sophisticated arrangements and offbeat charm as BBB, but with less of that group’s dry sarcasm. A few songs such as “Look At What Happened” and the vulnerable “Seeing Eye People” echo BBB’s more sentimental moments, and songs like “Totally Masked Out” contain the type of wordplay Phillips is known for. “Female in Images” balances twee sing-songy vocals and screwy guitars, and “I Think I’m Dead” is a scrappy, catchy, morbid singalong. A few tracks such as “No Eyes Too” and “Roadside H.O.X.” feature the type of minimal arrangements that made BBB’s early albums recall the minimalism of Young Marble Giants. It’s an excellent, varied record and is further proof that Phillips and OSR Tapes are responsible for some of the best lo-fi weirdo pop of the moment. Listen on Bandcamp now.
Bloody Knives are an Austin-based group whose name makes their intentions clear. Their sound is harsh and violent, recalling shoegaze at its noisiest (Psychocandy, Skywave) as well as the most aggro industrial. They do have their dreamy moments though; the vocals aren’t distorted screaming, they’re often kind of drifty and sighing, and the guitars also float and soar as much as they scorch and singe. Most of their songs are fast and frantic, even approaching punk tempos on songs like “Buried Alive”, but there’s also a few (relative) breathers such as “Static” and 2-minute interlude “—–“. The group’s overwhelmingly loud sound is harsh and crushing, but they still leave ample breathing room. They’re absolutely gory compared to most other shoegaze bands, though.
Thee Koukouvaya: This Is The Mythology Of Modern Death
Usually Saint Marie Records is a home for dream pop and shoegaze, but this is entirely different. Shapeshifting electronic music which is ambient and reflective one moment, then hypnotic and dancey the next. “The Magnetic State” is calm and mysterious, with a gorgeous sunset of synth pads and softly tapping beats, but the electronics simmer and almost overheat by the end. “Anacaona” gets us firmly in n5MD-type melodic, atmospheric IDM, with mutating glitch beats and big, stratospheric melodies. “Chicago Warehouse Party 1995” is exactly what its title implies, with a big stomping beat, although it might be too melodic and the bass is too wub-wubby for 1995. “Drunk Machine” is a shimmering, dubby halftime stumble. After the brief factory scan of “40.207958 74.041691”, “Phantoms In The Last Age” is another slow, somewhat dubstep-ish track with all sorts of eerie screeching in the background, and even a few dolphin-like sounds popping up from the surf. “Prismatic Sun” is one of a few songs on here to bury some vocals in the fog, but it works really effectively here. “A Life In A Portolan Chart” is another drifting afternoon daydream landscape with strong yet calmply placed beats, and then more mysterious vocals (possibly in Greek?) as the songs lulls to a close. The whole album is really nice, I wasn’t expecting it to sound the way it does so it surprised me.
Hour 1
2:02 am Pantha Du Prince ~ “You What? Euphoria!” ~ The Triad (new) ~ Rough Trade ~ 2016
2:07 am Thee Koukouvaya ~ “Drunk Machine” ~ This is the Mythology of Modern Death ~ Saint Marie Records ~ 2015
2:13 am Mark Pritchard ~ “Rebel Angels” ~ Under the Sun (new) ~ Warp ~ 2016
2:16 am Silvestre ~ “Ride” ~ Floresta EP (new) ~ Diskotopia ~ 2016
2:20 am Jameszoo feat. Arthur Verocai ~ “Flu” ~ Fool (new) ~ Brainfeeder ~ 2016
2:25 am Egon Elliut ~ “We Last” ~ TBT003 (new) ~ Truth Be Told ~ 2016
2:28 am Pete Namlook & New Composers ~ “Russian Spring Part XII” ~ Russian Spring ~ Psychonavigation Records ~ 2005
2:36 am Autechre ~ “feed1” ~ elseq 1–5 (new) ~ Warp ~ 2016
2:47 am Blood Rhythms ~ “Zippers With Eyes (Original Version)” ~ Skin Flint ~ Ka-Rye-Eye Tapes ~ 2015 Hour 2
3:05 am Konstruktivits ~ “Beirut” ~ A Dissembly ~ Dark Entries ~ 1983
3:10 am EXM ~ “Overscore (Nonima Rmx)” ~ Overscore (new) ~ Touched ~ 2016
3:17 am Iglooghost ~ “Peanut Choker (Maxo Remix)” ~ Little Grids (new) ~ Brainfeeder ~ 2016
3:19 am Cakedog ~ “Champions” ~ Champions (new) ~ Leaving Records ~ 2016
3:22 am Mattia Trani ~ “Traffic 2 Traffic” ~ The Hi-Tech Mission (new) ~ PushMaster Discs ~ 2016
3:27 am AMJ Meets RSD ~ “Depth Drop” ~ Sky Blue Love (new) ~ Astar Artes Recordings ~ 2016
3:31 am Agent 30 [Bogdan Raczynski] ~ “5L45H! 4TT4CK! 3NT3R K3Y!” ~ ’96 Drum n Bass Classixxx ~ Rephlex ~ 2002
3:36 am Ec8or & Moonraker ~ “Smash Him to Ground” ~ Harder Than the Rest ~ DHR ~ 1995
3:41 am JT Whitfield ~ “Hunting and Ingrown” ~ JT Whitfield (new) ~ Rural Isolation Project ~ 2016
3:49 am Gate ~ “Caked” ~ Saturday Night Fever (new) ~ MIE Music ~ 2016 Hour 3
4:00 am Sad Lovers and Giants ~ “50/50” ~ Lost in a Sea Full of Sighs ~ Dark Entries ~ 1981
4:03 am Kikagaku Moyo ~ “Silver Owl” ~ House in the Tall Grass (new) ~ Guruguru Brain ~ 2016
4:13 am Spray Paint ~ “Feel the Clamps” ~ Feel the Clamps (new) ~ Goner ~ 2016
4:15 am Landing ~ “Delusion Sound” ~ Third Sight (new) ~ El Paraiso ~ 2016
4:21 am Torn Hawk ~ “Under Wolf Rule” ~ Let’s Cry and Do Pushups At the Same Time ~ Mexican Summer ~ 2014
4:25 am Tallesen ~ “Strike Silver, Love Green” ~ Stills Lit Through ~ Software ~ 2014
4:30 am Cloudland Canyon ~ “Dambala” ~ Silver Tongued Sisyphus ~ Kranky ~ 2007
4:41 am Cloudland Canyon ~ “Heme” ~ Lie in Light ~ Kranky ~ 2008
4:48 am MJ Guider ~ “Lit Negative” ~ Precious Systems (new) ~ Kranky ~ 2016
4:53 am Vivien Goldman ~ “Launderette” ~ Resolutionary ~ Staubgold ~ 1981
4:57 am Young Magic ~ “Homage” ~ Still Life (new) ~ Carpark ~ 2016 Hour 4
5:01 am DJ Q ~ “Sonic” ~ mp3 (new) ~ Local Action ~ 2016
5:05 am Jessy Lanza ~ “It Means I Love You” ~ Oh No (new) ~ Hyperdub ~ 2016
5:10 am Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba ~ “Musow Fanga” ~ Ba Power ~ Glitterbeat ~ 2015
5:14 am Pretend ~ “Physical Flight” ~ Tapestry’d Life ~ Topshelf ~ 2015
5:22 am Trayer ~ “Wanderlust, Fast Shoe!” ~ One Over Zero ~ Porter Records ~ 2010
5:26 am LILLITH双生 ~ “Digital Wings (Funeral Parade of Roses)” ~ (Season_0) Hazard Garden (new) ~ Dream Catalogue ~ 2016
5:30 am Variant ~ “Enchanted” ~ The Setting Sun ~ Echospace [Detroit] ~ 2009
5:38 am JK Flesh ~ “Nothing Is Free” ~ 12″ ~ Downwards ~ 2015
5:43 am Retina.it ~ “Apeiron” ~ Semeion ~ Hefty ~ 2001
5:48 am Steve Roach/Robert Logan ~ “Biosense” ~ Biosonic (new) ~ Projekt ~ 2016
5:56 am Ital Tek ~ “Reflection Through Destruction” ~ Hollowed (new) ~ Planet Mu ~ 2016
Neat little comp of current Portland indie pop bands. First and foremost, I like the fact that this compilation is at 45 RPM and is short. It does what it does and then it’s over and you have time to listen to something else. You get a small taste of each of the bands, and if you want more, you can do your research and hear more. Some of it is kind of more downcast and sort of like the Field Mice or Felt or the more fey, girlfriendless stuff on Sarah Records. The songs by Honey Bucket are the peppiest ones here, and also Mope Grooves’ “Shape of a Pocket”. Lamebrain’s “What a Mess” is a pretty decent bummer power pop songs. It wouldn’t be entirely accurate to call this “twee”, but if the phrases “indie pop” and “Northwest” bring to mind K Records and the surrounding scenes/communities, you’ll have a good idea of what this sounds like.
Steve Roach’s all-modular Skeleton Keys album from last year won me over in a big way, and he’s never far from releasing a new album, so I’m excited to hear what’s coming next. He just simultaneously released two with younger UK musician Robert Logan. Biosonic is a blend of many different styles and approaches, with catalog’s worth of digital and analog synthesizers, sequencers, drum machines, you name it. It has its tribal trancey moments, some harder industrial ones, lots of glitching and intricate rhythmic patterns, lots of spacey drifting over everything. It’s really dense, really involved, and absolutely incredible. It feels like being in a giant warehouse full of machines, and every one of them is doing something different, and it’s easy to get lost trying to follow everything and figure out what they’re all doing. “Biosense” in particular is really rapid and complex, if I heard this blindly I would assume it was something on a post-Schematic netlabel. Pretty bonkers, and not the Steve Roach you might be expecting. The final track, “Amniotic Universe”, is 20 minutes long and gets pretty deep and droney after a while.
Steve Roach/Robert Logan: Second Nature
This is the space inhabited by Second Nature, a more “traditional” Roach ambient album. Four tracks, one of which is a half hour long. Slo-mo pianos, silvery shafts of light, a bit of darkness, but it’s all the name of reflection and solitude. Definitely not the ecstatic thrill ride that Biosonic is, but it’s certainly haunting and gorgeous, and worth sleeping to.
Confession time: I’ve never listened to Pete Namlook. At least not that much. I have a few tracks on compilations, I heard Alien Community once, I think, and I might’ve bought one of his trance 12″s in a dollar bin and gotten rid of it soon after. This is a reissue of an album from a decade ago, and I have no clue how it compares to the rest of his catalog, but it sounds pretty calming and relaxing to my ears. Really nice, lush ambient textures, but it’s constantly moving and detailed, with nature sounds and mystical voices providing occasional narration of spaced-out thoughts. There’s moments that drift in warped, altered environments, others that are more transportive, and still others that sort of flow out like some sort of neon fountain. Really rich and imaginative, I’m excited to dive into this guy’s catalog now.
The Answer Is In The Beat 