June 18, 2020 at 5:07 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Suzi Analogue: Su Casa EP
Three new songs from Suzilla, created on a Moog Subharmonicon. The title
SU CASA seems to allude to house music, but that’s only a part of the equation — her sound remains as uncategorizable as ever. “LIKE LIKE” is a fun ode to the elements filled with bumpy beats and octagonal melodic sequences. “Way Outta” is a more introspective tune with somewhat stripped-back beats making way for Suzi’s powerful lyrics (“I had to challenge my perspective”). “PPL PWR” is a faster, punkier track closer to last year’s “LOUDR”, but with more of a socially relevant message (“The people should rage/If you’re not coming together/then tell me what are you doing?”). The EP showcases Suzi’s own voice and lyrics more than some of her recent releases, while her rhythmic constructions are as vivid and inventive as ever.
June 16, 2020 at 8:45 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Toiret Status: Otohime
Isamu Yorichika’s first vinyl LP is a bit less beat-crazy than his previous cassettes, which sometimes flirted with mutated footwork; these tracks often resemble more of an implosion of rhythm. The rhythms are there, but the drums on opener “#86” are replaced by splashes, squeaks, and sometimes just silence. “#67” starts out sounding like it might be easy to follow, filled with pops, squishes, and chattering voices, but at some point the rhythm bunches up like a rug underneath a cartoon character trying to scurry away but staying in place. “#76.5” goes the other way, actually gaining more of a steady beat as it progresses, until it almost sounds like Bogdan Raczynski (in gurgly voice mode) making trap… and then bouncing squeaky toys off of the beat. “#78” is an arrhythmic sequence of short, blippy cartoonish sounds, sounding like a video game where you have to hit a lot of fast-moving shapes and they all trigger different sounds, and then that turns into bursts of rhythmic buzzing and distant, hazy vocals. “#65” is the biggest, most vivid explosion of drums, which get derailed by chattering voices at the end. Co La (NNA Tapes, Software, Orange Milk) assists on “#77”, a jittery click-dub piece filled with chattering voices and digital ribbits, as well as an atmospheric guitar break which ends up being the album’s most serene, relaxed moment. “75.5” is a colorful dance of minimalist patterns outfitted with computer clicks and bubble pops. The album ends up being less of an explosive neon rush than it starts, but it’s still fun, strange, and surreal.
June 13, 2020 at 7:48 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Deyeying: Living
Redhat’s newest project is sort of a resurrection of witch house, with gigantic neon synths and trappy beats crawling along. It seems to express the pressure of being alive on a dead planet, not quite feeling at home here, or having the will to live, but not ready to find out what’s on the other side, either. Or maybe not sure what side you’re on, hence the opposite artist/title. Super uneasy, but also balanced, and it expresses this inner existential turmoil splendidly.
June 13, 2020 at 7:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
scrap.edx: People of the Longhouse
Based in my home state (Connecticut), scrap.edx has been producing high-quality breakcore, rhythmic noise, IDM, and what have you for around 20 years now.
“People of the Longhouse” is a technoid track with some industrious percussion and some glitching, but it’s all very precise, clean, ordered, and functional. A sample during a pause in the rhythm projects a message against police-state surveillance, and the beat gets stompier, injecting just the right dose of energy for the message at hand. The other track on this single is by Children of Men, a hip-hop project scrap.edx’s Joshua Colella, and it sounds something like Aesop Rock recording in a cave with a broken beatbox. The beat drips like water from a stalactite and the emcee’s rapidfire rhymes bounce off the cave walls, getting more tragic and macabre as they progress.
June 12, 2020 at 7:39 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Enduser: Timeline EP
One of several Enduser releases so far this year,
Timeline is a 30-minute cassette released by a label based in Rotterdam. It’s a mixture of live tracks plus bits from collaborations and field recordings, each mixed into a side-long track rather than separated out into distinct songs. It starts out with some choppy, oldskool-leaning breakbeats with atmospheric post-rock guitars and continues in a sort of dark yet breezy direction. The beats are persistent but there isn’t any heavy, growling bass charging hard, it’s way more reflective than that. And then just a few minutes before the end of the first side, divebombing breakcore erupts out of nowhere, elevating what already seemed grand into something transcendent. The start of side B dices up some voices (an investigative report, maybe?) then drives breaks through some landmine fields. It picks up a bit more than side A and feels a bit more like a chase through different dimensions. Distant transmissions from Thailand and Malaysia add a ghostly presence to the mix. It gets a bit more storming by the end, but still keeping a gentle melodic feel. I should probably also mention Enduser’s song
“Collapse”, another recent Bandcamp upload, which instantly became one of my favorite works of his on first listen. So destructive, so furious, so much going on. Instant classic.
May 24, 2020 at 11:50 am | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Bogdan Raczynski: Debt EP 12″
I absolutely love the fact that there’s suddenly demand for old Bogdan Raczynski material. This resurrects tracks from before he signed to Rephlex, and it’s mostly fizzy, hacked-up hardcore that could still be mixed into a techno set, but would probably make most ravers’ skin crawl. He was still leading up to the bonkers brilliance of his IDM/breakcore stuff, there’s no funny voices or mutilated breakbeats, but it’ll still make you bounce around and crash into things. Hopefully since he’s excavated so much past material, he’ll find someone willing to release his newer, modular stuff.
May 20, 2020 at 7:11 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Addison Groove: Fred Neutron
Addison Groove’s third album is a potent soundclash which hybridizes dub, juke, breakbeat hardcore, and much more. “Bass Trips” is some steady U.K. bass pressure, with complex beats digging ever deeper. “TeknoJuke” is directly halfway between both, like a more stripped-down, pumped up “Jaguar” with a pinch of breaks thrown in. “Dreamscape 12” is sprinting breaks with a sneaking garage bassline, and “Laguna” is lush, ecstatic ambient footwork. “n(y)o͞oträn” is just as knotty as its title, while “Rale Dawomey” is an earthy flute-and-percussion track featuring Haitian musician Chouk Bwa. Near the end, “Out of Nowhere” is one of the album’s most direct doses of blissful yet melancholy atmospheric juke.
May 18, 2020 at 8:34 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
The Fear Ratio: They Can’t Be Saved
British techno stalwarts James Ruskin and Mark Broom have been producing more broken, abstract material as The Fear Ratio for a decade now, on Ruskin’s Blueprint label as well as Manchester’s god-tier Skam. Their third album simply has all the hallmarks of classic Skam — precise, fractured rhythms, suspenseful melodies, darkness, playfulness. It’s also the type of IDM that’s danceable and not overwhelmingly dense, there’s still enough space so that you can appreciate all the details. After the sort of DJ friendly first batch of tracks, there’s a much more haunted, minimal track (“The Curse”) which is followed by the rubbery, kinetic “LM3”. The next couple tracks are closer to Skam-ified hip-hop, a heavy bounce riddled with glitches and slivered vocals. It all seems to dissemble and dissolve with the fluttering bass wash of “A406”.
April 19, 2020 at 1:02 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Saphileaum: Samosi
Constellation Tatsu brings us more maximum tranquility with this set of 7 song-length pieces designed as aural cloth for a deep mountain expedition. Superbly comforting ambient music, sometimes with slow rhythms, and sometimes with the natural sounds of a trickling stream, which somehow sound more alien in this context. “Underneath the Godly Sky” is a serene work of beauty which feels like laying back and staring up at the clouds racing by on a sunny day, and then realizing how weird that actually is, at least in modern society. This music is the opposite of busy in a physical sense, but highly engaging mentally.
April 18, 2020 at 3:27 pm | Posted in Reviews | Leave a comment
Dark Day: Darkest Before Dawn LP
This is a little-known release by Robin Lee Crutchtfield’s Dark Day, recorded around 1985-86 and a far cry from his earlier minimal synth work. This is a collection of Medieval Pagan processions inspired by Moondog and played on a mixture of keyboards, recorders, amplified cello, and numerous types of percussion instruments, bells, and shakers. It feels traditional, but at the same time there’s eerie, carnivalesque atmospheres and some effects trickery. It also gets remarkably tender, with tracks like “Shod With Booths Of Ether”, then playful with others such as “Lost In The Shuffle”. “Giantess” is closer to Coil’s more funureal moments. The whole record is autumnal, but the second side sounds maybe closer to Halloween than the first, although it also has some almost celebratory moments.
« Previous Page —
Next Page »
The Answer Is In The Beat 