The Answer Is In The Beat

Dimitri Mazurov: Rudiments (Psychonavigation, 2016)

April 3, 2016 at 6:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Really impressive dark glitchy IDM from Russia. Some of it has buzzing abstract hip-hop beats and eerie melodies, and other times it’s slurpy, liquid Arovane-ish stuff. Other times it’s more sparse and alien. It seems like he’s manipulating some acoustic drums and bells into his work, but it’s hard to tell. “Nubilum” has a slower, straighter rhythm which still sounds like its sloshing through mud, and it has a dark, astonishing, wide-open melody projecting over everything. The album includes a remix by Oval, which seems to revisit his ’90s melodic glitch sound and combine it with his newer electro-acoustic drum-based sound in a really successful way.

DMZ: Carex Boréal tape (Tanzprocesz, 2016)

April 3, 2016 at 5:18 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The name DMZ has been used several times before, so just to clarify, this has nothing to do with dubstep, garage rock, or comics. It’s abrasive, cracked electronics that fizzle outside of the constraints of rhythms. Sometimes they lapse into melodies or patterns, it’s not quite a harsh noise wall or anything like that, but it still has nothing to do with proper tunes. The second part is the most scrambled and frazzled, sounding like an entire control room going haywire. The fifth part buries strange scowling voices and mournful drone melodies under piercing, buzzing static. Other tracks sound like rusty kitchen appliances receiving phone calls from the dead. The best way to try to make sense of it is to just download it from Bandcamp and see what messages it’s speaking to you.

D5: Sides of Space (Delsin, 2015)

April 3, 2016 at 12:09 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This CD looks pretty unassuming, but it’s actually a treasure trove of released and unreleased tracks by one of the best Detroit-sounding techno producers who isn’t from Detroit. Seriously, these tracks could’ve totally been released on Metroplex or Transmat or Planet E during the ’90s. Instead, they were released on Delsin during the 2000s and I’d never heard of them until now. Super vibrant, melodic, soulful night drive music. Tracks like “Transglide” and “Future Sense” perfectly blend striding beats and sublime melodies, hitting on whatever magic formulas Carl Craig and Juan Atkins have been concocting for ages. None of these tracks are overstuffed or too busy, and yet they’re not minimal. They also aren’t the type of tracks that just loop endlessly for several minutes. They’re bright and alive, and they feel like they’re inhabited by spirits. Highest recommendation.

RONiiA: Sisters EP (Totally Gross National Product, 2016)

March 30, 2016 at 10:22 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Dark gothy indie synth-pop which explores a few different avenues, never really sticking with one sound. Singer Nona Marie Invie used to be in indie folk group Dark Dark Dark and producer Mark McGee was in the incredibly brilliant To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie, who blended ethereal rock and noise in ways I’ve never heard anyone else do. He was also in Father You See Queen, who explored similar terrain. This has elements of those projects, but it seems a bit more upbeat. “Love Me” is a brief punk-inspired number, but instead of buzzsaw guitars, there’s airy synths, echoing vocals, spare drums, and really not much else. “Run” starts out sounding very much like an older Zola Jesus track, with wailing vocals and slow creeping rhythms, but then it ends up building up to 4/4 dance beats and fantastic sound design, with layers of multi-tracked vocals and intricate noises. “Sisters” similarly starts out sparser and unassuming, yet riddled with whispering voices and other details, before blooming into a fuller sound with waves of guitar and flickering, dancey beats. “Beg” is shorter, and starts out soft and intriguing with skittering beats, but it doesn’t develop the way the previous 2 songs do. “Hell” ends the album with slow, sludgy, drifting ballad, and it’s absolutely lovely, doomy without being hard or punishing. Really good dark electronic indie pop which does not succumb to any of the cliches of any of these genre tags. Also, I can’t stress enough, those two albums To Kill A Petty Bourgeoisie put out on Kranky are severely underrated, please check them out sometime.

Zbigniew Karkowski/Jean-Louis Huhta/Lars Åkerlund: A Bird In The Hand Is Worth Two In The Bush (The Last Recordings, Sweden, November 2013) (Sub Rosa, 2016)

March 30, 2016 at 9:59 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This double CD contains the final recordings by Polish electro-acoustic/noise legend Zbigniew Karkowski. Both discs contain a single 42-minute piece each. These recordings require a lot of patience, but they are rewarding. Both discs go from being near-silent to building up to strange, disturbing, piercing levels of noise, to gradually cutting off to a lulling buzz, and then building up to more swarming noises. If you’re listening on headphones, or on a huge surround sound speaker system, your ears will be attacked, but in superb fidelity. This is a powerful, overwhelming, immersive audio experience. It’s also likely to drive you crazy if you’re not prepared for it.

Rydberg: s/t (Monotype, 2015)

March 30, 2016 at 9:56 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

This is the duo of Werner Dafeldecker and Nicholas Bussmann. Dafeldecker is known for electro-acoustic improv ensembles like Polwechsel, and collaborations with artists like Fennesz, Lawrence English, and even Eugene Chadbourne. I’m not as familiar with Bussmann, he’s worked with Hanno Leichtmann and released music on Staubgold, but a lot of his work doesn’t ring a bell for me. Anyway, this isn’t quite as electro-acoustic and alien as I was expecting, it’s actually quite rhythmic and even techno-influenced. The opening track “Elevator” is pretty calm and minimal, but a thumping beat does emerge and eventually some fluttering oscillations. It slows down and spaces out for a while, with crushed samples crackling away. “Gardening” has more of a structured beat, but it’s more of a mysterious thump than a dance beat, and there’s a rusty fiddle sample dropped in at some point. 14-minute closer “And the Science” sounds a lot closer to techno, with droning ambient synths and a shuffling beat, but it’s still laced with gritty, bubbling feedback noises. It ends up with a distorted bassline and some crude bleeping noises, sounding like a pretty wacked-out take on the early ’90s Warp sound. A strange, unexpected, and successful approach to experimental techno.

myr.: Diamondbacks Make Wonderful Pets (PNN, 2016)

March 27, 2016 at 7:05 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

One of many CDs that have ended up crossing my path via my job that just came out of nowhere and took me by surprise. A lot of the tracks on this album are long and repetitive and super abstract. The first thing it reminds me of is Moby’s Trophy Records label from the mid ’90s, which he used to release a lot of long repetitive experimental techno tracks under pseudonyms. Tracks like “The Dirty Underground” were meant as critiques on how stale and repetitive he felt the rave scene had become at that time. This probably isn’t coming from anywhere near the same perspective, but it has a similar sort of alien strangeness to it. Some of the tracks have minimal 4/4 beats, but others have tiny bass pulses and weird scattered rhythms, like “A Little-Bitty Bowl”. There’s just something odd and paranoid about this and I really like it. Also the last track is quite pretty.

Baumann / Koek: s/t (1979, reissued by Bureau B, 2016)

March 27, 2016 at 5:38 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Yet another astonishing Berlin-school reissue from Bureau B. The Baumann here is not Peter Baumann of Tangerine Dream (who actually does have a forthcoming album on the label) but Wolfgang Baumann, along with Ata Koek. The extended sequencer fantasies on this album immediately catch the ear with rapidly flashing arpeggios, which accelerate at some points, increasing the excitement. Ata Koek is Turkish, so there’s a tiny hint of Middle Eastern melodies, but you might not notice if you’re not really paying attention. Final track “Sequencer Roll” is a short ditty with a blues chord progression; while most of the album seems like it’s gazing up at the stars, this one’s setting its sights on a railroad track in Mississippi.