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Everything on Hangable Auto Bulb is definitively Richard James, from oddball samples about mashed potato on “Children Talking” to the neck snapping breakbeats. I felt like I was listening to his entire back catalogue condensed into just over half an hour. What is even better is the fact that most of the material is danceable. Not in a jerky, beard-stroking IDM way but actual fun appreciation of music with your body.
“Laughable Butane Bob” is very nearly a cheesy dance anthem but it’s pulled back from musical oblivion by James’s idiosyncratic blending of wobbly synth lines with some of the finest beats made by a machine. Another remarkable thing about Hangable Auto Bulb is that it doesn’t sound dated or tainted by countless emulators of James’s style. I found it as fresh today as it sounded a decade ago.
The humor is still funny and the music still sounds modern. Aphex Twin may have strayed off the road a few times over the last ten years but on Hangable Auto Bulb he was heading full tilt down a highway that looked like it was going somewhere special indeed.
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Hymen
If I were still of a mind to lace up my combat boots and stomp-danceuntil the wee hours of the night in a smoke-drenched hole in the wall,this would likely be my favorite record of the year. Architect is theproject of Daniel Meyer, who’s probably best known as a member of thelate-blooming industrial act Haujobb. I jumped the industrial shipsometime around 1994 just as a new crop of post Skinny Puppy bands wereemerging and filling the holes left by longtime industrial danceveterans who had either gotten too old to look good in leather or hadmoved on to more lucrative forms of music making. As a result, Haujobbflew by me completely, but I can understand and hear where Daniel Meyeris coming from on his latest release for Hymen.
There’s adistinctly technological edge to the music—sounds are processed andsynthesized in an obviously mechanical way—but the sound design isstill sharp and appropriate. The rhythms remain tied to a dance flooraesthetic, thus tying the record to it’s past, but there’s nothingstomp-stomp-stomp about the album. Most of the snare drums are replacedwith bursts of static noise while the kick drums splatter like adistorted 808 running wild. The album feels like the perfectly logical,but still fruitful and progressive result of a scene that has recycleditself more than it has reinvented. When artists stray too far awayfrom the strobe light and technolust aesthetic, they are oftendismissed by the scene-faithful as style traitors. I can see Architectappealing to the purists without pandering to them. This album couldeasily be the “gateway drug” for the diehard boots-and-goggles crowdinto a world of music outside of their comfort zone, and that is alwaysa good thing.
Aside from winning the ‘Quickest Sample Turnaround from Movie to Album’ award for dialogue that’s lifted from Sin City,the album also reminds me that there was a reason that I liked themusic I found in high school, and it didn’t always have to do withchanting and being pissed at the world. This is the sort of thing thatI had hoped would grow out of the halcyon days of industrial danceclubs, and while many of Architect’s peers are still recycling thevocal distortion, stage posturing, themes, beats, and glowstickdreadlocks from 15 years ago, Meyer seems to be moving forward, if everso slightly, to keep it fun.
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I enjoyed Tape’s first two records as perfect manifestationsof a familiar aesthetic. Opera and Mileau worked in glitchist blurrings of chamber room noise: smallmachines, gauzy strings plucked, harmoniums and harpsichords swelled anddisassembled in a humble and über-patient way. These early works are ephemeral in the slow-swarming of theirconstruction, to the point where any poignancy or nostalgia grasped, seems torefract through an autumnal filter, as the aging discolorations and thick airof an attic might transform a life’s old memorials into one of the same sadsubstance. More than mood music, thesefirst two releases support tableaux of wintry decay that feel many times toototal, too sunken into their scene. I amreminded both of the music of Piano Magic and the self-deprecating title totheir retrospective: Seasonally Effective.
They’ve shifted glitch processing away from being the force that actedupon or moved each piece forward. Instead the computer plays itself and plays with beautiful restraint,briefly augmenting and blending with significantly pared-down, close tocrystalline melodic foregrounds, these played with the same ephemeral paletteof strings and bellows that, without the shimmering digital action, warpcyclically and stone solid.
Rideau is five tracks, each longer, morerepetitious and also simpler than the Tape that came before, though the moodsand access points within the work appear immediately more various andnumerous. The same instruments are bothmore distinct and codependent within a rigid structure, placing many sectionsinto what feels at first like a drum-less post-rock archetype, like the mostdetermined (not “studied”) moments of a late Gastr or early Tortoiserecord. Taken for the duration, though,waving with their stoic parts and dusted with microcosmic variations, thesetracks take on the consecrated air of high minimalism.
The last two songs, “Exuma” and “Long LostEngine,” project this mantra with two-note guitar and keyboard swells thatexpand and contract along motorized routes, windows back into the antique moodof the first two records, before, in their persistence, opening onto sparklingclear, monolithic vistas: holy shit. The pristine weightiness of this recordingalmost makes me hope for a remix version, something like Stephan Mathieu’sreworkings for On Tape, somethingthat would glimpse these proud forms in a kind of dissolution.
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Southern Lord
“Cannibal Massacre (Extended Skin Reaping Mix)” wasextended far too much, it loses steam about halfway through the song.“Horns of the Witch” on the other hand is too short. At just over aminute I was only beginning to rock out when it unceremoniously ends. Cannibal Massacre has left me cold and I’ve no real desire to explore Lair of the Minotaur any further.
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Nophi
Randy Garcia has quietly been building an empire in central and south Florida, racking up an impressive catalog of releases that touch nearly every corner of the vast field of electronic music. Whether he’s releasing his own work under the r_garcia alias or putting out records by kindred spirits, the same enthusiasm and sense of purpose permeates everything he touches. It’s that enthusiasm that makes Garcia’s live performances so magical, and also what makes Nerd Parade a fun, eclectic ride through Garcia’s unique headspace.
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The title says it all. Point, spot, period, German play on words, or English slang, it fitseach way. Every song on here references pointed,popular punk ideology and stylization, and every one makes me feel like I’vebeen tricked into listening.
Sold as acollection of Ziegler’s “greatest hits,” Punktactually compiles the artist’s earliest releases, most of them basement issuecassettes that probably go back to his youth. Having known Ziegler only from his work with Sack und Blumm, Mouse onMars, and as a figurehead in the A-musik scene, I feel mislead by thepresentation of this record: I want timelessnaïve pop ambient; I want the ancient bedroom tapes with Ziegler mixing streetnoise and naked harmonium drones for the first time; I want the childhoodinspirations for Sack und Blumm’s toy world. I do not want songs like “Barbie & Ken” and “Teenage Lover,”sounding like Royal Trux 20 years back with no drugs, no “singing” voice, andraised on German television.
Punkt is 22 lo-fi punkish pop tunesexecuted by a one-man-band with a predictably keen melodic sense and the necessaryexuberance; it’s just not close to the Zeigler I know and that’s disappointing. Staubgold’s last release of this nature, acollection from faceless German pop recluse Die Welttraumforscher, was a brilliant and literal borrowing from FelixKubin’s (Gagarin Records’) back-catalog, as well as a successful fusion of theunknown, always quirky German pop landscape and the contemporary electronicscene peopled by the likes of Barbara Morgenstern, Mouse on Mars, etc. Punktmight’ve benefited similarly, from an extra disc of remixes, or even aredux by Ziegler alone. As it is, thesesongs are inspiring and revolting in equal and simultaneous doses; nowhere isthe otherworldlyness or the subtle nostalgic currents touching ‘Sack’’ssubsequent work. Here is the playfulpunker kid in everyone, only it might be more engaging if it were just anyone.
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North East Indie
Their fondness for the dramatic and themusical exploration that has been so prevalent on recent releases findsits crest on their latest full-length, an openly political and vibrantalbum, equal parts puck doom and clown glee. The track thatexemplifies this energy is "Pie for the President," which starts as aChaka Khan beatbox, then a harlot's choir comes in singing of sausages,turkey tongues, and mass appeal. Suddenly, a cacaphonous orgasminterrupts the proceedings, then a solid three-part chorus of "why whowhen" begins, returning things to a certain normalcy. The songjust frolicks along then before dissolving into cabaret strangenessabout a "backwards brain" and how "everyone dies and it's all alie." The interesting part is that the song goes through so manychanges and is just over three and a half minutes. Stretch thatconcept to ten minutes plus, and the bulk of the record isrevealed.
Sharp-voiced choruses, chill-bearing bass, oddinstrumentation, Vincent Price-esque monologues and theatrics abound,all with the varied messages direct and indirect about the state of thenation and the world at large. The band has taken to spellingtheir home country as "U$A" on their website, and the sentiment is notlost in this collection. "The Ghosts are Greedy" flat out saysit: "we must escape the government, with powdered wigs and wetcement." The heartbeat of the album is this free verse speakingfor a non-free populace, on "murdering ego," "taking out thepassengers... and hunt down my enemies," and how "surely, reality, youare not quite what you used to be."
Rarely has the band expressedthese feelings through their own unique voice, and it's jarring in itsfrank emotional pitch. The songs work their way into the psyche,the message takes hold, and suddenly a whole new meaning isachieved. A wonder this is to behold; and those that should hearit would never listen in the first place. They're not listeningat all.
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Killer Pimp
This is noise for dancing, at least in part, and it's noisethat loves chaos in a way that only Satan possibly could. Lucifer'snoise is part drone, a layered, demented noise full of psychedeliceffects and hazy textures all of which tend to reach a criticalvelocity before ending. His dance tracks, on the other hand, are justthat. It's impossible to resist his dance floor oriented beats,pounding away like a war drum beneath sharp, swirling effects and heavystatic.
When "Discopathology" hits it's a bit of a surprise. Luciferdoesn't hold back, utilizing compressed melodies, unintelligible vocalsamples, and all manner of cut-up blast rhythms that build and build toan orgasmic level, pumping like a well-oiled machine. It's hard not tothink of Nitzer Ebb or any of the dance-industrial giants that madesimilar, but significantly less energetic music than this. It's alsohard not to imagine a factory with innumerable gears, gaskets, engines,and cranks moving in perfect time.
The first half of the album isprodigiously funkier and voluptuous. "Alive" amounts to the completedestruction of the Bee Gees, a sacrificial burning of their trademarkvocals and disco style. A tense reworking of the melody from "Stayin'Alive" is countered by Lucifer's start and stop dynamics. It's anaudacious track, especially on a noise album like this one. It mightturn a lot of purists off, but it adds a world of dimension to thealbum, one that is altogether harsh and uncompromising. As the albumcomes to a close, Lucifer turns the darkness factor up about tennotches, increasing the intensity of his feedback blasts ormanipulating the mood of the entire track by incorporating deepergroans and hinting at rhythms somewhere in the distance.
Trevor Brown'sfantastic artwork fits the mood of the album perfectly. The nurse withher open legs might suggest some kind of welcome gesture, but it'd bethe most insane kind of sexual adventure. Lucifer similarly opensthis album up for the noise uninitiated and then proceeds to crusheveryone and everything sucked in by his whirling mania of dancing feetand chainsaws.
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Modern Radio
The reference points on the band’s debut are like a map that cut aclear trail to the front doors of Touch & Go, circa 1993. Theguitars sputter and spew, pissed as shit and itching for a fight. On arecord like this, it’s the drums that keep everything and everyone fromgoing overboard, and while drummer J. Michael Ward isn’t rewriting thebook, he does a good job of keeping the band from becoming an uttermess. Lyrically, Chris Besinger infuses his antagonistic cut and pastelyrics with two parts bile and one part cynical sneer.
A Cum Laudegraduate of The E. Smith & Albini School of Fucked Up Songwriting,Besinger’s lyrics read like the schizophrenic musings of a conspiracytheorist with a serious self-image problem. On standout “Ready theReplicas” he muses over spring coiled arpeggios and flashes of cleantone guitar strumming that “highly caffeinated acid heads havecommandeered the bathrooms on every floor” before the rioters outsiderush in to presumably burn the fucker down. While the song’s sci-fitale gone awry may seem cliché, it gives a clear indication of themusicianship of guitarists Adam Burt and Nathan Nelson and bassistJesse Kwakenat. Though “New National Anthem” does contain one gem of aline, “we sing for panty-sniffers, and the grossly overweight. Aren’tyou proud to be an American?,” it puts itself through one too many timechanges and verses. Perhaps due to the brevity of the rest of thealbum, “New National Anthem,” with its four minute running time, seemslike a marathon.
While the songs on Dignified Sissy seem ready to fallapart at any one second, that’s part of the fun. Stnnng bring nothingnew to the table, but in many ways that’s just fine. Dignified Sissyrocks out in ways that a lot of other albums won’t rock out in 2005.
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Elseproduct
This new release comesalong during a small flurry of renewed interest the so-called"Isolationist" sound of 80s/90s dark ambient electronics, of whichTactile was reportedly a key constituent. Although I must say here thatI've never quite had a grasp on what exactly was meant by the critics'coinage of Isolationism, or what exactly it was supposed to entail. Andit further seems oddly antithetical to group together works that aresuggestive of isolation and alienation.
The album's release also comes quite close to the one-year anniversaryof the death of Coil's Jhonn Balance, to whom this album is dedicated. Bipolar Explorer wasoriginally slated for release on Coil's Eskaton imprint, but due towhat is explained as the artist's "chaotic mental state," it wasdelayed several years and now appears on Elseproduct. As the album'stitle suggests, this work is nourished by a state of innerpsychological sickness, a frigid inner landscape illuminated by harshindustrial tubes of humming fluorescence, populated by the buzzing,scraping circuitry of dread. As one might expect from the artist whocreated such bleak, color-desaturated audio realms as those of Inscape and Borderlands, the sounds on Bipolar Explorer lean heavily on the depressive, and not so much on the manic side of things.
Throughout the album, the listener is confronted with shrill andagitating electronic pulses that often seem utterly detached from anysort of recognizable humanity, coldly passing with seeming randomnessthrough a series of indifferent relays that trip, buzz and spark withan energy that could only metaphorically be referred to as "life."Rhythms do appear, some beyond the accidental rhythms of alternatingcurrent, but they are alien repetitions defined by the kind ofdepersonalized routines of the assembly line, and certainly nothingthat could be called a beat. There are textures and atmospheressuggestive of specific physical spaces on tracks like "PeriodicUnstable" and "Watching the Spiders," perhaps the abandoned undergroundtunnels or warehouses of Everall's native Manchester, but more likelyan idiosyncratic inner-astral-space of oxidized, blasted-out furnacesand smog-stained, damp metal corridors. If Bipolar Explorercontributes anything to my understanding of these emotional imbalances,it is just how all-encompassing and corrosive they can be to one'ssanity.
Ultimately, I had a hard time listening to Bipolar Explorer allthe way through, as it put me in a very dark and claustrophobic place.Though I've never experienced bipolar disorder, I have suffered fromintermittent cluster headaches and migraines for most of my life, andthere were several moments (especially on the album's title track) thatfelt like tangible sonic evocations of that blindingly familiar pain,with waves of acrid smells of battery acid, burnt hair and thesickly-sweet chemical smell of a fresh batch of crystal meth, alongwith that sense of frenzied elation and creeping paranoia that directlyfollows its injection. Assuming that this discomfort and agitation weredeliberate on the part of the artist, this album is chillinglyeffective.
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Important
There are a few moments, however, on HMKE that are veryinteresting, and seem to indicate a slightly new trajectory for Larsen,as the group moves away from the crisp virtuosic instrumental interplayof previous efforts, into rather more nebulous territories. Instead ofthe usual guitars, drums, keyboards and digital elements each playingtheir own distinct role in the moody chamber rock, tracks like "M" and"K" seem purposely to form a muddy admixture, an undifferentiatedtangle of sound that, at times, all but buries its constituent layersin sheets of reverb and electronic drone. Although Larsen continue thestrategy of naming tracks after single letters of the Latin alphabet,the tracks here don't share the same sense of crystalline Goblin-esquegroup dynamics of Play, instead aiming for the grandiose, droning splendor of groups like Godspeed or Kinski.
The choice of remixers seems to confirm this new emphasis onelectronic drone textures. Deathprod, the Norwegian electronic artistwho works wonders both with his own project and as part of Supersilent,contributes a three-minute reworking of "H" which even furtherobfuscates each player's identity into a thick, reverberating funnel oforchestral noise. Origami Galaktika's extended remix is unique forthe way it isolates Julia Kent's lovely cello playing, placing itadrift amidst a whirlpool of circulating symphonics. However, it goeson for far too long with far too little development, which is just whatI though about OG after seeing them open up for The Legendary Pink Dotsa few years ago. All things considered, this EP bodes well for Larsen'sforthcoming album.
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