Show #681 – 8/13/23

August 13, 2023 at 2:34 am | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

will be away next week, in London seeing Aphex Twin at Field Day! i recorded a show to be broadcast by the robot, maybe i’ll post it here

12:00 AM Rupununi Safari (Mad Professor with Douggie Digital and Juggler) ~ Beat Of the Wild Beast ~ Steaming Jungle ~ Ariwa Sounds Ltd. ~ 1995
12:04 AM Hollie Cook ~ Unkind Dub ~ Happy Hour in Dub ~ Merge Records ~ 2023
12:08 AM Hoodie x James K ~ Scorpio ~ 065 (Scorpio) ~ AD 93 ~ 2023
12:16 AM Infinite River ~ Summer Session #1 ~ Space Mirror ~ Birdman ~ 2023
12:22 AM Rahill ~ Gone Astray ~ Flowers At Your Feet ~ Big Dada ~ 2023
12:25 AM Julie Byrne ~ Hope’s Return ~ The Greater Wings ~ Ghostly International ~ 2023
12:29 AM hackedepicciotto ~ Aichach ~ Keepsakes ~ Mute ~ 2023
12:34 AM Notsensibles ~ I Thought You Were Dead ~ Burning Britain: A Story of Independent UK Punk 1980-1983 ~ Cherry Red ~ 1980
12:37 AM Holy Wave ~ Path of Least Resistance ~ Five of Cups ~ Suicide Squeeze Records ~ 2023
12:41 AM Sonny Rollins with Heikki Sarmanto Trio ~ St. Thomas ~ Live at Finlandia Hall, Helsinki 1972 ~ Svart ~ 1972
12:57 AM A Produce ~ Jimbe ~ Land of a Thousand Trances reissue Independent Project Records ~ 1994
1:04 AM Malcolm Jiyane Tree-O ~ We’re Not Buying It (feat. Grandmaster CAP) ~ Red Hot & Ra: Nuclear War ~ Red Hot Organization ~ 2023
1:16 AM Soft Machine ~ Improvisation ~ The Dutch Lesson ~ Cuneiform Records ~ 1973
1:21 AM Euglossine ~ Salt ~ Bug Planet Is the Current Timeline ~ Hausu Mountain ~ 2023
1:23 AM Blipvert ~ Viridian Riot Cubes ~ The Sound Tower of Dr. Jitters ~ D-Trash ~ 2023
1:28 AM NO EYES ~ Lovelostbutnotforgotten ~ Idk ~ Kitty On Fire Records ~ 2023
1:35 AM DJ K ~ Ela Quer Pop Pirulito (feat. MC AG) ~ Panico No Submundo ~ Nyege Nyege Tapes ~ 2023
1:38 AM Ziúr ~ Pique ~ Eyeroll ~ Hakuna Kulala ~ 2023
1:42 AM ODESZA & Yellow House ~ Waiting Forever (feat. Preston.) ~ Flaws in Our Design EP ~ Ninja Tune ~ 2023
1:45 AM Georgia ~ Some Things You’ll Never Know ~ Euphoric ~ Domino Recording Co ~ 2023
1:48 AM Rafael Anton Irisarri (feat. Rachika Nayar, Dear Laika, James Heather) ~ Encore (Life at Cafe OTO) ~ single ~ Bandcamp ~ 2023

NO EYES: idk (Kitty On Fire, 2023)

August 6, 2023 at 3:26 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

NO EYES: idk

Just months after releasing a devastating album with a lengthy emotional title, Atlanta’s NO EYES surfaces on Kitty On Fire with another one with a name that suggests a careless shrug, but clearly has a lot more on its consciousness. Opener “i succ at life” starts out as a vaporwave smudge, then develops pulled-apart glitch-breaks and dovetails into harsh furious breakcore. Then later on there’s an extended monologue about reacting to racist violence by being violent against racists. “ucantsilencemii” contains a lesson about not believing predictions that don’t empower you. “lovelostbutnotforgotten” extends past 7 minutes and burns in a shoegaze fire in the most glorious way. x.nte and Elevation help add some combusting juke-core rhythms to “shitIamstillhere”, surrounding a National Weather Service announcement with monsoons of distorted breaks. “333” with Deantoni Parks piles up the data from a billion bursting screens, broadcasting the dystopian future in the present. “no home 2 go 2″… just another torrent of internal emptiness translated into a firestorm of noisy breakbeats and a rapid bitstream of decimated pop culture samples. How often are you this? Every moment of my life.

Show #680 – 8/6/23

August 6, 2023 at 2:31 am | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

12:00 AM Dub Specialist ~ Barb Wire Version ~ Studio One Space-Age Dub Special ~ Soul Jazz Records ~ ’70s
12:03 AM Bambii ~ One Touch ~ Infinity Club ~ Innovative Leisure ~ 2023
12:06 AM Aphex Twin ~ In a Room7 F760 ~ Blackbox Life Recorder 21f / In a Room7 F760 EP ~ Warp Records ~ 2023
12:09 AM x.nte ~ International ~ Reimagining DB ~ Kitty on Fire Records ~ 2023
12:13 AM Goldie vs SB81 ~ Rockstar 81 ~ 25 Years of Metalheadz – Part 7 ~ Metalheadz ~ 2023
12:20 AM Meat Beat Manifesto & DHS ~ International Sound System ~ Man From Mantis EP ~ Love Love Records ~ 2023
12:24 AM Minor Science ~ Casheine ~ 064 ~ AD 93 ~ 2023
12:29 AM DJ Seinfeld & Confidence Man ~ Now U Do ~ single ~ Ninja Tune ~ 2023
12:35 AM Isolée ~ Pardon My French ~ Resort Island ~ resort island ~ 2023
12:41 AM African Head Charge ~ Accra Electronica ~ A Trip to Bolgatanga ~ On-U Sound ~ 2023
12:44 AM Dustin Wong ~ Pegasi ~ Perpetual Morphosis ~ Hausu Mountain ~ 2023
12:49 AM Hakushi Hasegawa ~ Mouth Flash (Kuchinohanabi) ~ single ~ Brainfeeder ~ 2023
12:53 AM nondi_ ~ echo technician ~ shadow ~ HRR ~ 2023
12:56 AM Emil Amos ~ Interloper #1 ~ Zone Black ~ Drag City ~ 2023
12:57 AM Faust ~ Arrampicarsi Sul Vesuvio ~ Momentaufnahme II ~ Bureau B ~ early ’70s
1:01 AM Michael J. Blood ~ ISM ~ single ~ Bandcamp ~ 2023
1:04 AM Shake ~ Frayed ~ 12″ ~ FIT SOUND ~ 2010
1:12 AM Laf-O ~ Jerky Fader Octopus ~ Gettin Down 2 Bizness ~ Here’s My Card Records ~2006
1:17 AM Kassel Jaeger ~ Exposure Scales: Sunlight ~ Toxic Cosmopolitanism ~ Editions Mego ~ 2014
1:22 AM Schneider TM ~ Ost-Spirale ~ Ereignishorizont ~ Karlrecords ~ 2023
1:27 AM Golden Feelings ~ Better Weather I ~ Better Weather ~ Golden Feelings ~ 2023
1:36 AM Knife Edge ~ Favourite Girl ~ Where Were You? Independent Music from Leeds 1978-1989 ~ Cherry Red ~ 1980
1:40 AM Divide And Dissolve ~ Reproach ~ Systemic ~ Invada Records ~ 2023
1:43 AM Boris & Uniform ~ Angels in the Abyss (Abaddon) ~ Bright New Disease ~ Sacred Bones ~ 2023
1:46 AM Candy Claws ~ New Forest (Five Heads of the Sun) ~ Ceres & Calypso in the Deep Time ~ Twosyllable Records ~ 2013
1:49 AM Five Pebbles ~ We Know the Devil ~ Forgetmenot EP ~ Porcelain Music ~ 2021
1:53 AM Troller ~ Into Dust ~ Drain ~ Relapse Records ~ 2023
1:57 AM Penguin Cafe ~ Second Variety ~ Rain Before Seven… ~ Erased Tapes ~ 2023

x.nte: Reimagining DB (Kitty On Fire, 2023)

August 5, 2023 at 1:24 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

x.nte: Reimagining DB

Atlanta’s x.nte continues making breakcore as a form of self-therapy, purging inner demons through glitched-out tracks that mutilate samples from numerous genres. There’s menacing horrorcore vocals in tracks like “mischief & mayhem”, but there’s also jazzy pianos that provide a bit of balance, because plenty of other tracks on here just rip breakbeats apart. “international” sort of comes close to atmospheric ragga-breakcore, but even more deconstructed than that description sounds. A remix of Elevation’s “Fuzakeruna” forges a destructive groove, with harsh breaks forming a fairly steady pattern. A few tracks get into screamy metalcore territory, and “Qualm” has some impressive time changes and incorporations of guitars and drums along with acid and breaks. Some of the melodramatic vocal samples on this album are a little uncomfortable, they go into a brutal self-loathing direction I’d prefer not to go down, but there’s enough tracks that aren’t like that to make it worthwhile. Also, a few tracks by other artists are curiously included at the end, including RENEGADE ANDROID, Laxenanchaos, and nohighs.

John Wiese: Magnetic Stencil 1-3 LPs (Helicopter/Troniks, 2020-2021/vinyl reissues by Gilgongo, 2023)

July 30, 2023 at 4:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

John Wiese: Magnetic Stencil 1

John Wiese’s Magnetic Stencil series, released on CD a few years ago and now pressed to vinyl, consists of lengthy collage pieces featuring sonic contributions from an extensive list of noise and experimental visionaries, including Aaron Dilloway, C. Spencer Yeh, C. Lavender, Lasse Marhaug, and Gilgongo’s James Fella. That’s about half the guest list on the first volume alone. Also, the first 2 parts were composed and mixed in one day, and the third was created on another. How?!?! There’s so much going on during these records. Wiese always has fascinating ways of combining controlled, sudden bursts of sound with space, so that everything sounds clear even when it’s noisy and chaotic. Sounds shift between varying levels of clarity, across multiple layers and channels, with tape sputter, deformed human voices, and broken, struggling frequencies all appearing at will. A smudged, slowed down rhythm worms its way into the picture near the end of the first side, and I’m guessing Dilloway had something to do with it, but there’s no way of telling for sure. After it disappears, several layers of metallic buzzing emerge, and some how it’s elevating instead of headache-inducing. Side B starts out with some A Big 10-8 Place-like voices that are zapped and splashed to oblivion. It then slithers between more tape-fried voices, more metallic vibrations, delicate string plucks, and blankets of jammed frequencies. More delicate but sharp bowing and buzzing is intercut with fluttering feedback, mutated whispers, and alien messages from dozens of different angles. There’s something symphonic about the way these sounds are paced until they converge into a violent roar. Totally bewildering.

John Wiese: Magnetic Stencil 2

Volume 2 features Dilloway, T. Mikawa, Joe Potts, and Robert Turman. A little different than the sporadic interjections of the first volume, this one starts out as a sort of terror scene, with dense walls of noise blazing, slowly shifting to reveal exactly what type of damage is being caused. Jammed tapes cause sudden whiplash, support systems strain and crack. A house of horrors is engulfed in flames. The second side is less panic-stricken, at least at first. It moves a lot more slowly, but it’s clearly haunted, and there are moments that bleed into heavy harshness. Mostly it’s just vast, sooty layers with buried voices, industrious hissing, and moments when half-forgotten music bubbles through. Somehow near the end, the acoustics suggest that this might be a live performance. If it was, the very end might have been something like Hanatarash bulldozing a venue.

John Wiese: Magnetic Stencil 3

Volume 3 features Tim Kinsella, Howard Stelzer, John Collins McCormick, and several others. Another haunted house of abrasive tape manipulations and rumbling acoustic noises, this time with some more kitchen-like sounds sprinkling and smashing in near the beginning. Some half-sliced voices semi-sing near the end of side 1, almost as if they can only communicate their message by being extremely distorted. Then a cartoonish thwack kicks it out like a football. The second side is a fog of spacey delay, pretzel twist feedback fuzz, and voices nearly ground into dust. There’s moments that elevate further, particularly the counting voice in the middle and the atmospheric drift that follows after it. Then it ends up with a particularly impressive homemade rocket blast for its ending.

Golden Feelings: Better Weather (self-released, 2023)

July 23, 2023 at 4:06 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Golden Feelings: Better Weather

The newest album from Golden Feelings (Dustin Krcatovich) contains recordings of “Better Weather”, a piece performed using a matrix of 64 loops, including software instruments, live instruments, and field recordings. Randomly selected cards serve as graphic scores, indicating when to use “active” and “passive” loops. The piece is never performed the same way twice. Two recordings are included along with a short interlude. There’s other generative music pieces you could compare this sort of method to, but it’s more important to just focus on the music and what’s happening and how it makes you feel. The first part mostly sounds like walking through a natural area basking in bright sunlight, and eventually happening upon a gently flowing stream. The water sounds are easy to hear, but there’s also some very soft, infrequent beats audible if you turn it up loud enough, maybe like distant footprints or objects falling from trees. The second version feels a bit lighter, a bit glassier, a bit more distant and perhaps more imaginary.

Show #679 – 7/23/23

July 23, 2023 at 2:27 am | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

12:01 AM Burial ~ Unknown Summer ~ Infirmary / Unknown Summer ~ fabric Originals ~ 2023
12:10 AM Michael J. Blood ~ Heaven Nine ~ single ~ Bandcamp ~ 2023
12:14 AM Mort Garson ~ Zoos of the World ~ Journey to the Moon and Beyond ~ Sacred Bones Records ~ 2023
12:19 AM John Vanderslice ~ Crystals 15 (77) ~ Crystals 3.0 ~ Tiny Telephone ~ 2023
12:21 AM Brandt Brauer Frick ~ Dotted Line ~ Multi Faith Prayer Room ~ Because Music ~ 2023
12:26 AM Music For Pleasure ~ The Human Factor ~ 7″ ~ Rage ~ 1980
12:30 AM Lauren Bousfield ~ Organized Abandonment Bird Migration Patterns Relentless Bureaucratic Violence ~ Salesforce ~ Orange Milk ~ 2023
12:32 AM Evil Robot Ted ~ Infinity Looper Machine ~ Asteroid Clickbait ~ Brokecore ~ 2023
12:38 AM アツオ [Atsuo] ~ B1 ~ 作品集 ~ Virtuacore ~ 1997
12:48 AM Lindstrøm ~ Everyone Else is a Stranger ~ Everyone Else is a Stranger ~ Smalltown Supersound ~ 2023
12:59 AM Doc Sleep ~ Wiped Memory ~ Birds (In My Mind Anyway) ~ Tartelet Records ~ 2023
1:02 AM Kedr Livanskiy ~ Kayf Mir ~ K-Notes EP ~ 2MR ~ 2023
1:06 AM Prayer ~ Reteoric ~ Io EP ~ SPHERES ~ 2023
1:18 AM Detroit’s Filthiest ~ Only God Forgives ~ single ~ Motor City Electro Company ~ 2023
1:23 AM Tommy the Cat ~ Reminiscing ~ The Cosmik Connection, Vol. 4 EP ~ Unknown To The Unknown ~ 2023
1:28 AM Yorobi ~ Stabs ~ Eden EP ~ Sneaker Social Club ~ 2023
1:33 AM Kode9 ~ Infirmary ~ Infirmary / Unknown Summer ~ fabric Originals ~ 2023
1:39 AM Detroit’s Filthiest ~ 5 Finger Discount ~ single ~ Motor City Electro Company ~ 2023
1:44 AM Woody Shaw ~ Boo-Ann’s Grand ~ Blackstone Legacy ~ Contemporary Records ~ 1971

Show #678 – 7/16/23

July 16, 2023 at 10:49 am | Posted in The Answer Is In The Beat | Leave a comment

12:00 AM Tony Allen & Adrian Younge ~ Steady Tremble ~ Tony Allen JID018 ~ Jazz Is Dead ~ 2023
12:03 AM Ali Farka Touré ~ Sadjona (feat. Oumou Sangaré) ~ Voyageur ~ World Circuit ~ 1991-2004
12:08 AM Hecker ~ Synopsis Seriation [excerpt] ~ Synopsis Seriation ~ Editions Mego ~ 2021
12:11 AM The Gray Field Recordings ~ Verdant Green ~ She Sleeps to the Sound of Knives ~ AntiClock Records ~ 2023
12:15 AM Ad Vanz vs Gescom ~ Viral ~ Split Series #2 ~ FatCat Records ~ 1998
12:22 AM Rom=Pari ~ Lisp ~ Substantia ~ Sub Rosa ~ 1999
12:26 AM Scrot ~ Nurefic Vethefet ~ Nature/Nurture EP ~ Amputate ~ 1999
12:31 AM Mark Stewart ~ Consumed (Alec Empire’s Digital Hardcore Mix) ~ Consumed: The Remix Wars ~ Mute ~ 1998
12:35 AM Lauren Bousfield ~ Debtors Prison Click Here Disney Needs To See This ~ Salesforce ~ Orange Milk ~ 2023
12:39 AM Ghösh ~ Devil Lady ~ Prismassive EP ~ Ramp Local ~ 2023
12:40 AM LustSickPuppy ~ Ride It ~ single ~ lustsickpuppy ~ 2023
12:43 AM “Weird Al” Yankovic ~ Dare to Be Stupid ~ Dare to Be Stupid ~ Volcano ~ 1985
12:47 AM De-Bons-en-Pierre ~ Une Fuite Chaussée Mais Sans Lacets ~ Card Short of a Full Deck EP ~ Dark Entries Records ~ 2023
12:50 AM Rezzett ~ Off For Spots ~ Meant Like This ~ The Trilogy Tapes ~ 2023
12:56 AM Nondi_ ~ arboreal reject ~ footwork radicals ~ HRR ~ 2023
12:58 AM Saloli ~ Yona ~ Canyon ~ kranky ~ 2023
1:03 AM 16B ~ Water Ride [Stacey Pullen Remix] ~ 12″ ~ Eye Q ~ 1998
1:07 AM The Dylan Group ~ Sandcastles ~ 12″ ~ Bubble Core ~ 1998
1:13 AM Henry Franklin ~ Tribal Dance ~ Tribal Dance ~ Catalyst ~ 1977
1:19 AM Milford Graves with Arthur Doyle & Hugh Glover ~ March 11, 1976 II ~ Children of the Forest ~ Black Editions ~ 1976
1:24 AM Gate ~ Clouds Again ~ The Numbers ~ Birdman ~ 2023
1:29 AM Divide And Dissolve ~ Simulacra ~ Systemic ~ Invada Records ~ 2023
1:31 AM EXIT ELECTRONICS ~ Kneejerks ~ Believe Anything, Believe Everything ~ Avalanche Recordings ~ 2023
1:37 AM Caterina Barbieri ~ Perennial Fantas ~ Fantas Variations ~ Editions Mego ~ 2021
1:45 AM Schneider TM ~ (J = 0) ~ Ereignishorizont ~ Karlrecords ~ 2023

The Gray Field Recordings: She Sleeps to the Sound of Knives (AntiClock Records, 2023)

July 15, 2023 at 8:17 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

The Gray Field Recordings: She Sleeps to the Sound of Knives

R. Loftiss’s avant-folk project returns after more than a decade since their last album. I actually haven’t listened to them before, but they were on the Gold Leaf Branches comp on Digitalis back in 2005, and had CD-Rs on labels like Reverb Worship. There’s elements of Coil alchemy, but also Natural Snow Buildings drone-folk and surreal collage poetry, incorporating unique instruments and sometimes children’s voices. “Rappaccini’s Daughter” is the album’s 18-minute centerpiece, and it’s a cryptic, hypnotic web of sometimes-reversed text, dulcimer vibrations, and cracked transmissions. “Verdant Green” has sharp clanging for percussion but has a sort of sweet vocal melody, making it one of the most inviting moments on the album. “Sex Flowers” starts out with whirring noises that sound like bees buzzing, then has sensual poetry, rubbery synths, and thumpy beats at the end. “Who Will Bright the Light?” is a much darker, more haunting drone, and then the sparse, creeping title track is as disturbing as its title. Lastly, “Wilderness Takes Over” begins delicate and intimate, then ends up unhinged and noisy, but the glowing synth trail makes it feel like it’s staying on a tightrope during a storm.

Gate: The Numbers LP (Birdman, 2023)

July 12, 2023 at 7:52 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment

Gate: The Numbers LP

First released last year on Bandcamp, this 2012 recording from Michael Morley of the Dead C has now been pressed to vinyl thanks to Birdman. Morley dials his drum machine down to a click, making it imitate a lethargic drummer, and his guitar blusters and blares on top of it as if he’s setting off smoke bombs every time he touches the strings. The vocals stumble through the fog just as much, and it all feels like someone barely holding their mind together. The rudimentary drum machine really helps guide the current here, if it was a real drummer the musician would probably have the urge to over-play or freak out, and it just works better as a dead, stiff trudge like this. “Land” has a particular way of making the mind fuzzy, and then “Clouds Again” has something resembling a trip-hop beat, which throws things out of wack even further. “Film Envy” has some of the most overwhelming, overdriven noise on the album, and it finds a clever way to escape at the end.

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