Let it be known, that Tourroists! is a difficult record, and those with a stubborn lack of cultural objectivity will be wise to avoid this album. You have been warned!
Up until this album, Mark Gergis, the man behind Porest (as well as Mono Pause / Neung Phak), has been quietly mapping out his own course of ethnomusicology that hinges upon the complex layers of cultural perception between the US and the third world. Neung Phak stands as his Thai Pop ensemble, in which he exquisitely explores the particulars of SE Asian pop music complete with re-creations of radio dramas and the eccentric hybridizations of eastern and western idioms; he's also been responsible for some for some of the best collections from the Sublime Frequencies series (i.e. Choubi Choubi and Cambodian Cassette Archives). Porest is Gergis' media-manipulation project, and Tourrorists! will undoubtably go down as his most inflamatory and most provocative work. Tourrorists is a scathing political record that unabashedly takes on the themes of 9/11, Guantanamo, Arabic conspiracy theories about Israeli secret police (Mossad), and Christian missionaries. However, unlike the politically charged works of Negativland, Gergis refuses to center the album from a particular political or cultural institution (whether that be atheism, socialism, anarchism, etc.); instead, he challenges the listener to question his or her own politics and cultural perspective about any of the topics. Case in point, "Let's Roll" recontextualizes various media snippets from the 9/11 hearings as well as Jihadist rhetoric through computerized voices that emulate the inflection of an American woman, an American man, and an African-American man. There's something intrinsically disturbing about these dispassionate spoken texts, not to mention the wildly contradictory banter between these three characters. Similarly, Gergis collages a particularlly banal public service announcement into a matter of fact "Soilent Green is people!" declaration. Gergis also gives an English translation to the classic collaboration between Aaviko and Kabar on "Eye of the Leopard" originally sung by the only known escapee from Guantanamo. Alan Bishop from the Sun City Girls also makes a stunning cameo on the summery groove of "Hoyda." None of this speaks of the intricacy of Gergis' musical productions which run from mangled electronics, plenty post-SCG Syrian pop numbers, and canned bossanova rhythms; but, it's the ideological content that renders this album a pipe bomb. Tourrorists! is bound to piss you off or offend you in some way shape or form; and we mean that as a very high compliment.
Light Divide is the newest full length from Porras, who is likely better known to most folks as 1/2 of drone-doom duo Barn Owl (or to many of you as a former aQ-er), and on his solo records, as well as on recent Barn Owl records proper, Porras has seemingly been distancing himself from the twang flecked smolder of the earlier BO records, a sound that won them great acclaim, but found them permanently aligned with their sonic forebears in Earth, both sharing a similarly washed out, deserty sonic palette. But as Porras began to experiment more with synths and electronics, and even beats, his sound blossomed into something much more his own, eventually arrive here, at Light Divide, which takes the psychedelic witch house murk of Porras' solo project DVVLLXNS, and melds it to a dreamy, pulsing drift, not all that far removed from Kompakt's Pop Ambience, in fact, opener "Apeiron" would have sounded right at home on any of the Pop Ambient compilations, as as longtime readers of the aQ list know, there's hardly a higher compliment.
And if you can imagine a sort of witch house / Pop Ambient hybrid, that's definitely shorthand sonic band math for Light Divide. The aforementioned opener is all soft focus synth swirl, dense ominous drones underpinning the ethereal shimmer, the track flecked with tinkling high end sonic sparkles, laced with distant percussion, and instead of a beat proper, it's like the sounds are being subtly twisted and shaped into gristly pulses, and lush chordal swells, a blackened kosmische drift, that's heady and hypnotic, a gorgeously haunting late night sonic sprawl that manages to be both cinematic and expansive, claustrophobic and introspective.
"Recollection" takes the same template, and manages to make it even more skeletal, creating a crystalline latticework of click and thrum, of hiss and static, lots of reverb and echo, hazy and amorphous, like the digital dub of Pole pulled apart until there's barely anything left, a hazy, somnambulent dream-drift. "Divide" piles on multiple layers of hum and thrum, all softly undulating, lush and lustrous, tonal colorations gradually leached from the sound, leaving just thick rumbling swells and shadowy smears of melody, pocked with soft shards of static, and all blurred into a slowly shifting cloud of softly psychedelic shimmer.
"New Monument" might be the most kinetic of the bunch, gnarled melodies all tangled up below fields of hazy and smoothed out crackle, laced with whip crack percussion, single bursts swaddled in reverb and sent drifting into the ether, gradually blossoming into what sounds more like some sort of slow motion gothic ambience, a mutated 4AD miserablism, stretched out into a strangely percussive bit of wistful drift, before bleeding right into the closer "Pleiades", which finds the previous track being swallowed whole by lush billows of low end thrum, the result a drowsy, shadowy slo-mo dub, that halfway through is transformed into something much more kinetic, bathed in a soft sonic glow, the percussion and buried pulsations roiling below the surface, the sound closer to something like Vessel or oOoOO, which makes us think the next Porras solo joint could end up on Tri Angle or Blackest Ever Black. Fantastic stuff.
Joining the likes of AQ fave M-bands Mogwai, M83, and Magyar Posse (and they've also even been compared to a few S-artists Ulrich Schnauss, Stafraenn Hakon and Sigur Ros), This Italian group ever so gallantly and gracefully toss their finely crafted musical hat into the ever-expanding global atmospheric postrock arena. Port-Royal's sprawling 78-minute long Flares is a soft, hazy blissed-out dream of an album filled with shimmery ambient washes of glacial guitars peppered with occasional wisps of electronics and samples. Each and every time we've played this in the store, it draws many enthused queries. Really really calming and really really pretty. Positively sigh-inducing.
Techno is a genre of self-quotation and unrepentant appropriation, always looking in the rearview mirror at what just happened to predict what will be the hot-shit trend on the dancefloor tomorrow. So to be able to trace an entire strain within techno's taxonomy to a specific record is quite rare. The 1996 album Biokinetics by Porter Ricks is one such record, setting the stage for pretty much every electronic artist who would flock to the banner of Chain Reaction through a stylized hypnotic, narcotizing techno haunted with deep atmospherics, dub murkiness, and subaquatic allusions. Porter Ricks was the duo of Andy Mellwig and Thomas Koner, who pursued "techno as a nautical sound experience." By the time the first Porter Ricks single emerged in '96, Koner had already developed his signature isolationist approach to slow-motion sound-design blustering with arctic metaphors through the dronemuzik classics of Nunatak Gongamur (1990) and Permafrost (1993). So when Koner began exploring techno with Mellwig, the approach to techno was less about 64-bar measures and more about constructing an evolving atmosphere girded to quintessentially German techno engineering that could be taken for a sonic portrait of tidal flows, map coordinates, sonar blips, and the vastness of the deep blue sea.
Biokinetics opens with the magnificent "Port Gentil" whose steady techno pulse coalesces through overlapping patterns from muffled pulsations of white noise and distant locomotive rhythms, later topped by a radiant metallic drone. The somatic oscillations of "Biokinetics 1" hardly makes for a techno track at all despite the insistent rhythms, but the eerie heartpulse dub of "Biokinetics 2" takes an isolationist reproach to everything adding its own desolate pulse and some subterranean reverb. Granulated hiss and slippery drone shimmer blossom through the final tracks "Nautical Nuba" and "Nautical Zone" that look forward to what Wolfgang Voigt would produce on his seminal Gas albums Zauberberg and Konigsforst. It sounded awesome in 1996, and it sounds awesome today.
The vinyl is limited to 700 copies!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
"Symbiotic" is a split release between stalwart bleak technicians Porter Ricks and Techno Animal, in which the tracks of each are presented in alternating fashion. While Porter Ricks has made the best Chain Reaction records for the label, Thomas Koner and Andy Melweg have moved away from the heroin house aethestic for a sound that complements the oppressively dark hip hop futurism of Techno Animal. Surprisingly cohesive for an album that could easily fall apart in lesser hands.
When we first got an earful of Aftertime, the debut solo release from Roly Porter, who was/is one half of the dubstep duo Vex'd, we were pretty surprised. We had been expecting something more along the lines of that duo's lush dark beatscapes and swirling skeletal stutters but instead were treated to something entirely different. The beats almost entirely jettisoned, bar the occasional squall of rhythmic splatter, or super spare muted pulsations. The vibe is much more abstract, and droned out, a sort of dark cosmic mimimal modern classical? But somehow filtered through the grim industrial crunch and crumble of groups like Wolf Eyes. The sounds at times caustic and grimly grinding, but more often then not, woven into a sprawl of sweeping musical melodrama, lush, soaring string like shimmers, underpinned by gristly buzz, and dubstep style bass warbles, but sans the 'step'. The dub vibe too, minimal, but still pervasive, imagine if you can, the lush, hushed, cinematic ambience of Stars Of The Lid crossed with the blackened industrial crush and sculpted noise of past Record Of The Weekers Cloaks, it's almost like the most dense, and bleak, sonically sinister intros to the darkest dubstep jams, expanded into whole tracks.
But these are not just glorified extended intros, Porter crafts roiling landscapes of abstract ambience, a series of sonically harrowing epics, the opener sets the stage, all moaning tones and extended drones, very symphonic, but again, rough around the edges, as if the sounds are slowly decaying, the soundtrack to some otherworldly post apocalyptic wasteland, which leads right into the first track proper, which sounds like an alternate soundtrack to The Conversation as imagined by Organum. Dense sprawls of metallic rumble, laced with buried electronic squiggles, sonar like pings, all wreathed in a layer of gauzy, crackly, washed out sonic grime, and the whole thing wrapped around a weirdly dreamlike melody, drifting hauntingly through this heaving cloud of soft black noise. Eventually, the sound blossoms into something even more intense, blasts of electronics, shards of noise, all somehow fashioned into a dizzying barrage of almost beat-like buzz.
The record gradually introduce more and more melody, Porter's dense electronic blurscapes balanced by lushly melodic stretches of layered string like shimmer, a definitely modern minimalist vibe, but then of course, those bits of melodic tranquility, seem to sink into Porter's crumbling distorted electronic morass, sometimes completely, leaving just roiling expanses of buzz and hiss, glitched out crunch and keening electronic bleat, but just as often, striking some seemingly impossible balance, lacing this heaving sonic hostility with something totally at odds, soaring strings, lush chordal swells, which transforms the sound into something else entirely. Later huge demonic foghorn like low end rumbles moan ominously, adding a weird almost demonic drama to otherwise near tranquil drift, that low end constantly expanding, into black, gristled drones, woven into the aforementioned string sweeps, but often drifting into the background, leaving gorgeous bits of hazy minimal drift, mournful piano, swaddled in soft swirls of lush thrum, even at one point bursting into what might be the most moving moment on the record, with a soaring minor key melody, achingly melancholic, driven by a strange super distorted, crumbling almost metallic sounding 'riff' that mostly adds texture and heft, and reminds us of another longtime aQ fave Tim Hecker, as well as the recent record from Seirom, a more blissed out offshoot of Gnaw Their Tongues.
An utterly gorgeous collection of minimal electronic soundscapes, grim buzz laden modern chamber music, and black drone ambience, a record we've been wanting to make our Record Of The Week for over a year now. So glad we finally can. Absolutely recommended, and of course, most definitely for fans of Ben Frost, Stars Of The Lid, Tim Hecker, Cloaks, etc...
Life Cycle Of A Massive Star is a pretty ambitious title for a record from post-dubstep beat junkie, but if Roly Porter's last record, Aftertime, which we made a Record Of The Week, was any indication, a lot has changed since Porter's time in the dubstep duo Vex'd. Not that we didn't love Vex'd, we definitely did, their brand of dubstep was way out on the fringe, dark and dour, warped and skeletal, washed out and hazy, but none of this is to imply that Porter's post Vex'd output would in anyway be classified as dubstep, BUT some of the soundscapery that made Vex'd so interesting is definitely in full effect, even more so on this new one.
Aftertime was a sprawling experimental epic, more sound design than anything, abstract and ambient, like the score to some mysterious abstract art film, reminding us of another aQ fave, Ben Frost, and like Frost's albums, it was most definitely a record that had us wondering why this guy was not in Hollywood, crafting music for big budget sci-fi blockbusters and twisted art house flicks. So we were actually expecting more of the same, but Life Cycle Of A Massive Star threw us for a loop, the opener "Cloud" does actually sound like a Vex'd jam, a pulsing, pulsating Field like melodic stutter/loop, with some clipped vocal fragments, you can almost imagine the drop coming at any time, a barrage of rib cage rattling bass wobble, and percussive machine gun stutter, but it never does, instead, it locks into a super hypnotic cycle, that has a bit of a kosmische vibe, a sort of synth-age mesmer, but the main pulsating melody is surrounded by dark swirls of keening minor key shimmer, giving the whole thing a super tense, and intense vibe, at least until the last couple minutes, when the loop peels back, revealing an ominous, majestic symphonic score, that could have been lurking below the surface the whole time. And even then, slowly devolves into a creepy stretch of abstract ambience, and post industrial soundscapery.
The rest of the record tends toward the sound design of Aftertime, but with some of the newly revisited Vex'd audio of the past. Deep subsonic rumbles, buzzing Eastern melodies, groaning and creaking machine like clatter, clouds of crumbling static, soaring swirling strings, moaning cellos, operatic vocals, that track, sounds like a Vex'd opera, melancholic strings, deep dramatic vocals, peppered with little bursts of percussive skitter, and a 'beat' of sorts, that's more like the opening looped stutter, again a la the Field, but here, wed to the stately operatic majesty, the result is like some post modern electro-opera symphony, super ambitious, and absolutely epic. After a gorgeous track of hushed ambience, the final track gets seriously cinematic, opening with some ominous drones, some blurred barely there melodies, a little bit of orchestral shimmer, creepy chordal swells, distant clang and clatter, like the sounds of an abandoned space station, lovely and cosmic and subtly harrowing, a fantastic bit of sound design evoking images of being lost in space, trapped millions of light years from home, in a huge metal obelisk, floating in starless black, all complete with a gorgeously intense symphonic score.
Portion Control were always an obscure proposition despite their longevity. This British trio started in the early '80s crafting a hyper minimal form of claustrophobic electronica that proved to be a huge influence on the work of Skinny Puppy and Depeche Mode; but their influence on these acts never trickled down to bring them greater acclaim over the duration of their career. During the '80s, they issued a handful inventively reductivist / muscular electronics girded by proto-techno rhythms and fleshed out through filtered and flanged electronics. The monotone barked vocals have been hyper compressed and shoved way in the back of the mix are pretty much the same technique that Nivek Ogre brought to Skinny Puppy a few years later. Portion Control were never intending on making poptunes of the shock-horror model or angsty youth model that those bands they influenced became so known for; instead, Portion Control's skeletal, hard rhythms thrusts immediately to the foreground with the metallic-flanged vocals, idiosyncratic / disjointed sequencing, and unidentifiable police scanner activity muffled at the background. When a melody comes along as on the strident "He Is Patriotic" or on the jittery death-dub of "Mass Disorder" or the proto-acid squelchiness of "Fiends", it can be quite a shocking juxtaposition given the calculated minimalism throughout the rest of this work. Imagine an even more stripped down DAF or Liaisons Dangereuses, with those Skinny Puppy vocals! The Portion Control back catalogue has gone through various reissue campaigns, including a ponderous 7lp boxset on Vinyl On Demand; and an even more comprehensive 5cd boxset, with I Staggered Mentally featured prominently on both sets. But here, we get another excellent reissue from Dark Entries, who give it a great remastering job, a booklet with tons of information, and a bonus track!
A brilliant, compelling album.
A lush and breathtaking live document of Portishead's amazing live performances. Gorgeous versions of all of the favourites backed by a full string section with oboes, flugel horns, trumpets, saxophones, flutes, trombones, Geoff Barrows' economic turntablism, and Beth Gibbons' spirited vocals.
Indie darlings Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie join forces in The Postal Service. Apparently these collaborations did indeed take shape via tapes mailed back and forth between the two. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Just what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. It's easy to draw comparisons to Kings Of Convenience vocalist Erlend Oye's new solo album which also sets a gentle male voice -- more familiarly heard with soft guitars and drums - singing atop light electronic dancey tracks. However unlike Oye's Unrest on which music and voice sound somewhat detached from each other, Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly. Recommended!
Arguably the second best song on Jimmy Tamborello and Benjamin Gibbard's Postal Service Give Up album, "The District Sleeps Tonight" is featured on this new cdep along with an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall, as well as a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix of the aforementioned album's *best* track "Such Great Heights" (at least according to Cup!), plus... this cd version includes a very mellow cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"!
For those that didn't want to pay $34 for the 2013 deluxe triple lp reissue of this 'indie electronica' fave, Sub Pop has also now done a regular, no frills vinyl reissue too! Here's some of what we said 'bout the last reissue, sans stuff about the extras (eps and rarities) included on the triple:
It's hard to believe it's now been more than a decade since the original release of this fantastic little slice of indie electronica, a collaboration between Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello (the electronics and production) and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (the bitter sweet indie jangle and that voice!) a project they called at the time The Postal Service (with a little bit of protest from the actual USPS!). Since then, their sound has served as a template for a million other bands, mining much of the same territory, sad boy, mix tape break up indie jangle pop, but all wound up in percolating beats, and warm lustrous electronic shimmer, not indie club music by any stretch, it still had that sort of homebrewed 4-track bedroom vibe that made (and makes) music like this so relatable, but it expanded the typical indie pop sonic palette, and resulted in a serious of glistening, dreamily propulsive, nearly anthemic electronic pop, that does indeed sound just as good now as it did when everyone was freaking out about it the first time around.
The Give Up record originally took shape via tapes mailed back and forth between Tamborello and Gibbard. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Pretty much exactly what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of occasional lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. The Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly.
It's hard to believe it's now been more than a decade since the original release of this fantastic little slice of indie electronica, a collaboration between Dntel's Jimmy Tamborello (the electronics and production) and Benjamin Gibbard of Death Cab For Cutie (the bitter sweet indie jangle and that voice!) a project they called at the time The Postal Service (with a little bit of protest from the actual USPS!). Since then, their sound has served as a template for a million other bands, mining much of the same territory, sad boy, mix tape break up indie jangle pop, but all wound up in percolating beats, and warm lustrous electronic shimmer, not indie club music by any stretch, it still had that sort of homebrewed 4-track bedroom vibe that made (and makes) music like this so relatable, but it expanded the typical indie pop sonic palette, and resulted in a serious of glistening, dreamily propulsive, nearly anthemic electronic pop, that does indeed sound just as good now as it did when everyone was freaking out about it the first time around. This tenth anniversary collection, gathers up the Give Up album in its entirety, along with two of the eps from around the same time, as well as some unreleased gems and rarities, and houses it all it a big fancy package, that incorporates the various iconic album art as well as lyrics, liner notes etc. Here's our slightly updated/revised review of these records from the first time around.
The Give Up record originally took shape via tapes mailed back and forth between Tamborello and Gibbard. Each track is subtle variation of the following: bashfully boyish vocals, chiming music box melodies and soft jangly guitars that play off one another over a simple thumping or clicking programmed beat. Gibbard sings oh so sweetly in his melted ice cream voice while Tamborello delivers the delightfully pretty electronics and bounding rhythms. Pretty much exactly what you might expect from a project starring these two fellows. Plus there's an added aural delight here and there in the form of occasional lovely vocals by Jen Wood and Rilo Kiley's Jenny Lewis. The Postal Service's Give Up has a wonderful chemistry that swirls everything together perfectly.
The first single from that record, also included in this anniversary collection, is another gorgeous display of the Postal Service's effortlessly effervescent crushworthy tunes. And ah, such a sweet peep it is! A perfect accessory to the full length. The title track "Such Great Heights" is an instantly catchy gem that's sure to find its way onto friends' mixtapes everywhere (even still) and is most definitely the best song on Give Up. The rest of the ep is filled out actually by PS songs performed by two other bands - fellow Sub Poppers The Shins and Iron And Wine. The brief cover love ends with Iron And Wine's drowsy acoustic rendition of "Such Great Heights". And y'know what? It's definitely different, but in its own way just as good as the original. Beautiful! Each version is strong on its own and great in concert with one another.
Also included is the second ep, The District Sleeps Alone Tonight, the title track, arguably the SECOND best song on Tamborello and Gibbard's Give Up album, "The District Sleeps Tonight" is accompanied by an alternate, much more percolated'n'squidgy mix by DJ Downfall, as well as a much more languid yet still thumpin' John Tejada remix of the aforementioned album's *best* track, the previously mentioned "Such Great Heights", plus... there's also a very mellow cover of the Flaming Lips' "Suddenly Everything Has Changed"!
Single number three is here as well, which in addition to the album track, includes two dreamy mixes from Styrofoam and Matthew Dear. And in addition to all that this new version tacks on a bunch of unreleased and rare tracks as well, including more collaborations with vocalist Jenny Lewis, their awesome Phil Collins cover, which was originally released on the soundtrack to the movie Wicker Park, there's also a John Lennon cover, originally from an Amnesty International benefit compilation, a Nobody remix, originally an iTunes only exclusive, and finally a live on the radio track from 2003.
And as mentioned above, the cd is gorgeous packaged in an oversized booklike package, 8 full color panels, multiple pockets, two booklets, tons of rare photos and more!! The vinyl too, in a similarly over the top multi paneled / pocketed jacket, and while they last we have the Loser Edition (i.e. colored vinyl!)
Sounding like Lesser circa "Welcome To The American Experience", but with a slightly more commercial bent, Posthuman take AQ favorites Lesser, Dark Noerd and the Tigerbeat 6 stable of noiseniks, add a little Boards Of Canada and mix in a heaping spoonful of mainstream techtronica ala Prodigy or KMFDM and come up with some cool, slightly dated, too weird for the dance floor, too dance-y for the weirdos. Out-there electronica.
For the first Acid record on the obtuse electronica label Phthalo, Jason Potratz admits that this record was made by a trainspotter for a trainspotter. This is a seemless mix of 29 very short tracks of Acid loops - with hammering four-on-the-floor
We discovered Colin Potter many years ago, through his heady production and sound design in Nurse With Wound, Ora, and Monos; yet like so many pioneering electronic musicians in the '80s, he released a slew of cassettes overflowing with various sonic experiments and audio excursions. Ancient History collects four of Potter's tapes charting his output from 1979 to 1989, including A Gain, Two Nights, and Recent History Volumes 1 & 2. Back in this time period, Potter was working in a post-kosmische aesthetic with a small arsenal of synths, step sequencers, drum machines, guitars, and effects. He had yet to incorporate the heavy-lidded drone and field recording component which he's been associated with as of late; but those tapes positioned his sound not too far from the Moebius / Schnitzler / Schulze axis of progressive electronics with a healthy dose of Chris Carter's DIY aesthetic tossed in for good measure.
A Gain was released in 1982 through his ICR imprint and is a culmination of work dating back to 1979. The opening number to this album is a bright hypnotic piece for glockenspiel and synthesizer, which builds upon elliptical phrases on those instruments with greater and greater density and kaleidoscopic fervor, snugly situated between Terry Riley's A Rainbow In Curved Air and Cluster's percolating motorik electron-pop. Elsewhere on A Gain, Potter pulls out the guitar to augment the synth blorp and drive with some fine Manuel Gottsching-esque explorations. Two Nights from 1981 is probably the cream of the crop here, not to belittle anything else on the set; but this is a great piece of futuristic electronics that is a must have for anyone keen on John Carpenter and Goblin soundtracks! The two original side long pieces both extend from the cosmic swoosh into dynamic kraut-disco jams with incremental sequences accelerating through drum machine, neon-lit synth cascades, and more heavily phased guitar solos. Potter adds a third lengthy bonus track of similar material to round out this fantastic disc.
The Recent History discs compile various Potter projects from 1986-1989, and find him in more of a darker, somber mood with ritualized ambience drifting about his more earthen sounding sequences and sodden acoustic guitar melodies. While there's much of the same instrumentation, Potter's production also becomes far more complex with more of the shadowy, occluded techniques that he would later master during his tenure in Nurse With Wound. As such, these tracks tend to parallel some of the work of Coil and O Yuki Conjugate, and even predates some of the melodic aspects of the ambient side of IDM that would emerge five or six years later.
This is quite different from the song-based minimal wave album of early Colin Potter material released on Vinyl On Demand; but certainly showcases just how great all of those early tapes of his were and how well they hold up today!
The latest from this long time aQ fave, comes in the form of a super limited tapes from the UK cassette label The Tapeworm, and features two sidelong tracks displaying two sides of Potter's sonic personality. The A side is a dizzying field of mathematically complex loopage, rendered in a seemingly perpetual state of decay and gradual disarray, beginning with fields of looped cascading electronic bleeps over distant pounded piano, and bleary smears of background shimmer, the piano becoming more insistent and jagged, almost maddeningly mesmerizing, all underpinned by a throbbing murky pulse, over which shifting rhythms collide and careen, sounds glitch and crunch, layers undulate, drones drift and swirl, the sound lurches and hiccups, lopes and churns, locking into weird sprawls of robotic hypno-groove, laced with what sound like cartoon bite sounds, and heaving black clouds of ominous rumble, a dizzying collision of black cinematic ambience, and kinetic, rhythmic skitter. The twisted backgrounds and the delirious dada-ist surrounding soundscapery, definitely point to Potter's longstanding collaboration with Nurse With Wound, but here those sounds are wound up tight, and let loose in a noisy, chaotic, carnivalesque funhouse, that at it's most intense sounds like a robot orchestra come to life, and running rampant, a barrage of buzz and hum, torrents of tangled rhythms, all bleeding and oozing into one thick viscous wall of pulsing pulsating sound, the eventually melts down to a cool droned out field of staticky skitter, and softly percolating grey noise drift,
The B side is a live recording of a rehearsal for a performance, and in some ways sounds like a more minimal, deconstructed, and sort of underwater version of the A side, softly noisy cascade pour down over beeps and bloops, splattery percussion is wreathed in warm swirls of echo and hum, the vibe murky and washed out, but building to occasional white noise squalls, the sounds a slow undulation, prickly and caustic in places, warm and shimmery in others, a field of slow moving drones, that splinter into shard of jagged sound, before sinking to the bottom, replaced by another thick layer of syrupy swirl. Dense and tense, but darkly dreamy, the sound eventually settling into something akin to old Oval, but replacing the muted shadowy swirl, with something a bit more abrasive, heavin swaths of industrial crunch, and jagged spears of high end skree, all wound up into slithery, prickly tangles, that eventually begin to unwind, the edges wearing off, the harsh surfaces burnished and glowing, the sound melting into a softly shimmering sprawl of hushed haunting thrum.
As with all Tapeworm tapes, extremely limited, this one featuring original cover art by noneother than Savage Pencil.
Final documentation of Potter's synth drone experiments, done before he sold his Moogs to concentrate on his real love, the sitar.
Who would have thought that an Atari 2600 would be the instrument of choice in the new millennium, but as technology moves forward in leaps and bounds, seems like the most forward thinking sound makers are reaching back, WAY back. Souped up Gameboys, home soldered circuit boards, old school analog synths, even the recent Tristan Perich release which did the 8bit-ers one better (or more precisely seven better) by creating a suite of music assembled from ONE bit sounds, as low as we can go. For now.
But for our generation, there's just something about the sound of 8bit buzz and crunch, the video games of our childhood, the strange alien computer soundtracks, it may push lots of nostalgia buttons, but you didn't have to grow up in the early eighties to dig that sound.
So here we have the first release from Ken Fec, one of the folks responsible for the tripped out bubblegum electro pop dreaminess of Black Moth Super Rainbow, who for his alter ego as Power Pill Fist, seems to have gone back to his childhood home, pulled all the boxes out of the basement, and plugged every video game and antiquated game console from his youth into a 4-track, run it through his fractured pop sensibilities, a bank of damaged effects, and voila. The cool thing is this is not a 'noise' record. There are some seriously noisy moments for sure, but at its core Power Pill Fist definitely has a glowing pulsing energy crystal pop heart. Albeit a pop that is way more freaky crunchy fuzzy trippy and whatthefuck than most. And it's flecked with bits of skittery electronica, downtempo hip hop, and whatever else Fec had up his sleeve or in his head at the time.
Originally this was touted as a record that was almost a straight recording of Fec PLAYING an Atari 2600, which would probably have been amazing, but this is way more musical and composed. There do seem to be some guitars, and some extra percussion, lurking within and beneath all the crunchy fuzzy buzz, but it's that buzz and crunch that defines the record. Give this thing BIGGER beats and you can almost imagine Daft Punk or Justice rocking some of these tracks in a DJ set. The disc opens with a murky bleep filled jam, the warbly melody and scratchy rhythm buried beneath thick layers of hiss and whir, wrapped around a simple way-down-in-the-mix guitar strum. It somehow manages to be lo-fi and lush all at once, some weird krautrocky Nintendo jam. The follow up is all big lurching drums and warbling blown out synths, that sounds like something Beck would jump all over. Some of the other tracks are much noisier, but even then, soft melodies, and haunting song fragments lurk below the surface. Then there's songs like "Chuckanut Drive" that sound like they could have been, should have been, heck, maybe actually were the soundtrack to some super obscure video game, bits of �other games-, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, etc. cannibalized and recontextualized into some new old game, but liberally sprinkled with dizzying synth squiggles and an extra layer of stuttering buzz.
In between all of these blown out, almost-electro fuzz drenched 8bit jams, lurk subtly simple, bedroom recorded interludes, the strangely metallic minor key minimal strum of "Contours Gaining Shape" or the washed out low end droning whir of "R4eactor", and sometimes Fec will offer up a bit of abstract synth / 8bit experimentation or a more arcade-centric soundscapes like the straight video game field recording sound collage of "The Meat Tree" (sounding quite a bit like one of those Arcade Ambience discs), but it's always right back into another awesome grinding buzzy video game electro pop adventure.
Imagine Pan Sonic produced by J Dilla run through a Colecovision. Or think Donkey Kong meets Rastan, chopped up and reassembled by the Flaming Lips. Or Autchre recording a new record using only a busted up old acoustic guitars and the guts of a Sega Genesis, or some crazy psychpop jam session, but with Intellivision consoles instead of guitars. Weird and warped, fuzzy and fun, heavy and crunchy, poppy and druggy and just fucked up and freaky enough to keep our ears buzzing and ringing non stop.
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Perhaps this shouldn't be called a Praxis record (the only previous Praxis-member present is mastermind Bill Laswell himself, and Mold sure don't sound like any of the fusion/funk/metal Praxis has been known for) but it's also my favorite Praxis record since at least the very-different Sacrifist. Electronic beats, lots of synths and sampling, stabs of classical, drifting droning beauty. Very nice. (And no Buckethead, if that matters.)
This album is billed as featuring alternate takes and beats from his recent One Word Extinguisher album, but don't let that fool ya -- this record might even be better than its fabulous "source". On thisrecord Scott Herren lets it all hang out. Much less precise and song oriented, this is glitchy and schizo and thus even more interesting, to me (Windy), than the previous album. It never get boring, the stops and starts are gently jarring, not confusing. There's funny vocal snippets, warm cellos, rough buzzes, fun beats, a heavy dose of hip hop, even a split second Dinosaur Jr sample. Recommended for fans of Amon Tobin, DJ Shadow, Unagi, Kid Koala, etc.
First of all let's just say: Highly recommended for fans of similar hybrid-minded artists like Amon Tobin, Boom Bip, Nightmares on Wax, Kid Koala, Fridge, etc!
With his second full length for Warp, the label that rarely puts out bad records, Prefuse 73 has created a downtempo breakbeat electronica album with a healthy grounding in hip hop. Yet the tracks with rapping don't stick out like sore thumbs (like on some lesser records I can think of) -- the album instead works as a happy, seamless whole, with cut-up buried rapping seguing into jazzy groove numbers blending into synth workouts next to glitch-filled triumphs of editing and then there's a vocal snippet and so on... There are no filler tracks, it's all quality -- bass-heavy, booty shakin', delicately clickety clackety *quality*. It's also delightfully unpredictable; you never know where it's going to take you next. Smoke pot to this record, or at least listen loud with headphones. The AQ staff was unable to get behind Mr Herren's first album but this one is just so good... With guests Tommy Guerrero, Daedelus, Mr. Lif, and more.
MPEG Download: "The End of Biters - International" [/audio/prefusebiters.mp3]
MPEG Stream: "The End of Biters - International" [/audio/prefusebiters.m3u]
A return to form for Prefuse 73 in more ways than one. Experimental Hip-hop producer Scott Herren's main project (of many projects and monikers) has been slipping into mediocrity ever since 2003's One Word Extinguisher and it's follow-up Extinguished: Outtakes. While we loved those records, his follow-up releases have gotten bogged down by too many collaborations and outtake releases that rehashed more than they refreshed. Herren's signature cut-up staccato method is in full effect here (Even the cover art and graphics hearken back to his classic releases) and while it's not as fresh as it used to be, the tracks are underscored by bits of composed and orchestrated pieces which are featured in their full form on a bonus cd (also included with the lp!), called Interregnums. Interregnums is not a collection of outtakes but 15 suites of lush orchestral impressionist compositions that make this double disc worth the price of admission. After the stifling confinements of his many monikered projects zap all the life from the well, hopefully Herren will shed the personas and fully take off in this new and wonderful direction.
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In the last couple years it seemed like Scott Herren was getting a little ahead of himself. It was beginning to feel like not a month went by without a new Prefuse 73 record or remix or release by one of his many other projects (Savath & Savalas, Piano Overlord, Delarosa & Asora, etc). While much of what he does is really good, the rate of his releases versus the overall quality was beginning to suffer a bit. The last Prefuse 73 with its multitude of guest appearances and vocal contributions seemed a little weak and stretched thin. Luckily he gets back to his bread & butter on this new Prefuse release. Chopped up beats, dissecting hip-hop anatomy and free jazz ferociousness. Kieran Hebden (Four Tet) makes one of the only two guest appearances that grace this record and with his current vision of electronics with a free jazz velocity, he and Herren make for perfect comrades. Herren even shows some humility and a sense of humor about himself by including a snippet of a radio interview where the host pretty much disses the last Prefuse record. But in true hip-hop spirit, Heron strikes back better and bolder then ever with a rewarding record that knows its aim and strikes its targets.
Let's just start by announcing our favorite track on here, ok? "Rain Edit Interlude" transports a fairly long sample from Linda Perhacs' Parallelograms into the glitchhop modernity of Prefuse 73's fourth full length. Yes, to us it is the best. In fact, it seems to almost transcend the rest of the album as more of a fully baked "song", less a merely super-produced mix of glitches and samples. P73 (aka Scott Heren) seems to do well working with female vocalists (see Savath & Savalas) - even when they're simply sampled. The vocal track(s) tend to beautifully round out his glitchy click clack hip hop production. Other featured artists/samples include Ghostface, El-P, Aesop Rock, Broadcast, Tyondai Braxton, Masta Killa and GZA. Recommended for fans of Amon Tobin, DJ Shadow, Unagi, Kid Koala, etc.
There was a time when it seemed like every month would see a new release by one of Scott Herren's projects. Whether as Savath & Savalas, Prefuse 73, Diamond Watch, Piano Overlord, Delarosa & Asora, etc. But it seems like he's allowed himself some breathing room and dedicated some real concentrated time and vision to craft this new Prefuse 73 album, which stands for sure as the most emotive and moody recording we've heard from him in ages. Without reading too much into the titles of these tracks like "The Only Valentine's Day Failure", "The Only Recollection Of Where Life Stopped", and "The Only Guitar To Die Alone" it's easy to believe that this may be the first true heartache/heartbreak record Herren has made so far. And while we're sorry if his heart has in fact been broken, we're happy with the intricate and witchy electronics that have been born out of that heartbreak.
The album finds Herren teaming up with some great haunting vocalists on a handful of the tracks including Zola Jesus, Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, and what may possibly be the last recording that Trish Keenan of Broadcast did before her passing earlier this year. In fact we get the feeling that Herren may have been listening to the great collaboration that Broadcast and The Focus Group made together as this album also is made up of ghostly miniatures that float and sway casting a mystical spell in their wake. So nice to be reminded that Herren is still one of the most talented and creative electronic music makers around.
Scott Herren -- who was responsible for the equally underachieving Delarosa albums on Schematic -- has managed to push all the right buttons in terms of hype generation for his Prefuse 73 project, but never really gets the album off the ground. This is an
Wow, did this throw us for a loop. We were always fans of the Sea And Cake, every record was breezy and dreamy, soft and poppy, maybe too much so for some folks. And then When Prekop struck out solo, his records seemed to be even breezier and softer, continuing to craft smooth and sleepy, dreamy jazz flecked pop. So that's sort of what we were expecting from Old Punch Card, but that couldn't be farther from what this actually is. An homage of sorts to early pioneers of electronic music, BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Raymond Scott, Nuno Canavarro, David Behrman and the like, almost entirely produced on analog synthesizers, with no vocals, no beats, virtually no guitars, mostly improvised, a gorgeous abstract collection of primitive audio experimentation, a symphony of bleeps and bloops, stretches of gorgeously rhythmic pulses and squelches, swirling squalls of analog freakout, lots of glitch and hiss and whir and hum, wondrous expanses of abstract ambient haze, playful music box like melodies, woozy atmospheres, delicate cascades of crackle and static, pulsing sci-fi synths that sound like the music from some seventies after school special, fuzzy blurs of glimmer and twinkle, scattery bits of lo-fi percussion, a constantly shifting world of low fidelity analog sound. Some of the tracks sound almost like Philip Jeck or Tim Hecker, bleary eyed gauzy expanses of otherworldly drift, others sound like a bit like a more primitive Oval, collages of electronic glitch and clipped tones, while still others sound like modern electronica, albeit channeling the retro sounds of yesteryear, and a handful sound like academic electronic experimentation, but they all sound fantastic, weird and wondrous and really really cool.
Primal Scream's follow-up to the blazing XTRMNTR of 2000 continues on in a similar adenalin-pumped vein as that mighty fireball, but the firepower seems considerably less focused and less fully realized this time around. Many of the tracks spiral and claw at your eardrums with their battalion of distorted electronic beats, effected vocals, and overdriven squelching guitars courtesy of Kevin Shields. However, an equal or greater number bring a much more straightahead trashy Detroit rock sound. Two particular example is the sneering "City" and "Skull X". An even more odd turn of events occurs between those two songs, as they present their renovation of Lee Hazlewood's "Some Velvet Morning"... they're assisted in this mission by Kate Moss on ultra-breathy vocals. Other notable individuals making an appearance are Two Lone Swordsmen (in the producer's seat), Robert Plant (on harmonica), and Jim Reid (on vocals)! Not only does Evil Heat come with a bonus limited edition dvd containing an assortment of live footage and videos, but the cd itself can be used as a secret decoder on their website.
Been itchin' for some bar room brawlin' blues rock? Primal Scream are ready to take you on! Sounds like they've taken a step back from the searing techno-rock of their great last album XTRMNTR towards more traditional rock'n'roll instrumentation and songwriting. Very very Rolling Stones-y, this is Primal Scream at their most loosely slung!
Seems like these Brits just can't help but switch back and forth between their two very distinct personalities -- that of slick dancefloor packers and unkempt hard rawkers. They've done the switcheroo on pretty much every one of their albums, and in our opinion they're much more potent doin' the latter. That said, regardless of their chosen arena, you can always count on much sneering attitude and driving aggression, both of which Riot City Blues has in ample doses.
This granular synthesis and dub recombination outfit recall, at their best, the Berlin axis of Pole, Porter Ricks, and the Chain Reaction sound of atomized electronica.
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Number 17 / 18 in the series of Fat Cat split singles. Process works with the warm bubbling electronic dub variations of granular synthesis a la Pole or Kit Clayton with happy, summery results. Dat Politics (aka Tone Rec) sequences hypercompressed samples (along with hip-hop yelps, snares, simplistic turntable scratches and hi-hats) in ironic electronica / hip hop structures.
We first laid our ears on New Jersey's, Professor Genius, on the great After Dark compilation that we're still playing on repeat even months after its release. This 12" features one of their tracks from that comp, "La Grotta", as well as two new songs on the 'b' side that we've been getting our robot disco on to. Think Tangerine Dream and Vangelis going out late night style with Jean-Michel Jarre and Patrick Cowley and you start to get an idea of what kind of lesson Professor Genius is teaching. Packaged in the great Italians Do It Better cut sleeve, this is wax that will keep you going late into the night. Hot!
A while back we made the record World, by Aussie noise rock / shoegaze outfit The Bunyip Moon, our Record Of the Week, a gloriously blown out, chaotic sonic gem, that even now we have trouble keeping in stock. So were were psyched to discover that one of the guys from The Bunyip Moon had a new solo record, a tape in fact, under the name Pronoun, and like World, it's weird and wonderful.
But UN-like World, Faux is not all bombastic noisiness and buried blown out melodies, instead, it's a darkly moody, lush, almost cinematic creep, right from the get-go, we're sucked into some mysterious soundworld, that to our eras exists right between the epic with house of Salem, and the soundtracky synth bombast of M83. So if that sounds good to you (and why the heck wouldn't it?!), then there's much to dig here.
The opener unfurls as a brooding plod, all primitive drum machine, over processed strum and thrum, before majestic synths swoop in, faux strings, the whole thing epic and stirring, but with just the right amount of distortion and noise, gristly, and staticky, and distorted and psychedelic, but even at it's most explosive, it's still lilting and lovely, it's a tough one to describe for sure, but it's pretty stirring stuff.
The whole record expands from that sound, with some of the tracks a bit more garbled and chaotic, darkly noisy and murky, sounding a bit like a way more abrasive Caretaker (which is most definitely a good thing), while others, slip into a more kosmische haze, all swirling chordal thrum and deep, lustrous sonic swells, and on at least one track, the sound slips into some strange, tripped out avant shoegaze new wave, although the best moments of course are when those disparate sides collide, which they do often, resulting in blissful noisiness, and noisy dreaminess in equal measure, culminating in the strangely gristly garble of crunched static and crumbling decaying distortion of the closer, which ditches pretty much all poppiness in favor of a strange sprawling field of grinding textures, and the sporadic sputter of alien transmissions from the ether.
Fantastic, and so so so recommended. The packaging is pretty ace too, totally over the top. The tape housed in a sleeve, housed in a second embossed outer sleeve, then housed in yet ANOTHER sleeve, hand silkscreened and ink splattered, a weighty arts/sound object, LIMITED TO 50 COPIES!!! Each one hand numbered. Includes a download code too...
The latest "big beat" (read: guitars and repetitive predictable beats) sensations, combining Chemical Bros.-style dance music with James Bondian martinis & car chase spy music...
Prurient does techno? Oh, yeah. And we have to wonder just how much input / influence recent aQ fave Silent Servant had on these recordings, as Through The Window sure does sound like a pretty solid response to Silent Servant's fantastic dark-techno album Negative Fascination which was released on Dominic 'Prurient' Fernow's Hospital Productions in 2012. That said, Through The Window did begin as out takes from the divisive Prurient album Bermuda Drain, noise-purists scoffed, but most everybody else was pretty taken by the EBM-rhythms and blackened synth propulsions on that record (us included). While the dark synth lines, horror-house melodies, and monstrous pitch-shifted vocals of Bermuda Drain are held over on Through The Window, the rhythms are pure minimalist techno with the production values polished for the dancefloor. Even in comparison to the grim gothicisms and industrial strategies of Sandwell District (the broader operation to which Silent Servant belongs), the atmosphere on Through The Window is utterly claustrophobic and ominous. Monophunk basslines lifted from any number of Autobahn techno bangers (e.g. Model 500's "No UFO's" or Konigsforst by Gas or anything from that aforementioned Silent Servant album) laced with metallic, flanging synths headed for a total death-trance trip. A four-minute crusted drone interlude breaks up the two lengthy techno workouts, which are essentially variations on the same theme. A damn fine album.
Two new tracks from Dom Fernow, Hospital Records head honcho, and the man behind a multitude of projects these days including Vatican Shadow, Christian Cosmos, Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement, among others. Prurient is Fernow's original project, but the sound of Prurient has come a long way since the harsh noise of his earlier releases. In fact, these two new tracks, like much of the recent Prurient output, most definitely falls more in line with Fernow's more recent electronic releases. Not that we're complaining, the A side is a fantastically grim slice of dark ambient drift, with distant vocal drones, and buried keening sine wave tones, draped over subtle murky pulsations, building gradually to a more driving rhythmic pulse, wreathed in static, the whole thing eventually engulfed in squalls of gritty noise and blown out crunch. The flipside though is whole 'nother thing, tranquil and almost new age-y, swaths of swirling synth, the whole thing hazy and ethereal, and hauntingly meditative.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!!! All on colored vinyl!
We almost thought we would never get to list this. When we first got it Vibrant New Age in stock, it flew out the door and we were never able to get enough copies back in to review, depriving us of the opportunity to gush about how much we love this album. Luckily we were finally able to get our hands on a stack of these, a record that ranks near the top of the list of the awesome sounds Not Not Fun has been releasing over the last few years by folks like Sun Araw, Ducktails, Maria Minerva, and LA Vampires. After a slew of limited run cassettes, cd-r's as well as splits with LA Vampires and Sex Worker, Vibrant New Age finds Psychic Reality really taking her sound to the next level. Stuttered synths and analog electronics creating a sound that blasts with radiant color and a warped left-field pop sensibility. In fact the record sort of sounds like what it might be like to show up at a late night dance party only to discover a secret side room filled with smoke, candles, and languid bodies brushing up against each other creating magical sparks that bring about a shift of energy. Like our favorite parts of Gang Gang Dance and Peaking Lights, or how we daydream a collaboration between Fever Ray, Throbbing Gristle and Lizzy Mercier Descloux would sound. Intoxicating, intense and full of a haunting potency.
Jump on this fast, as we're not sure if we will be able to get more once this batch is gone.
While the rest of the world has been reveling in the resurgence of the cassette tape, some folks have been taking it a step further, and going full VHS! Video Horror Show is a label who releases VHS tapes, which feature not only music, but also appropriately enough accompanying psychedelic visuals. Past releases have included the electro goth witch house of Masacara, and the droned out abstract psychedelic black metal of Suffer The Shards Of The Lost Cult Of Silence, which was in fact members of Woe and Absu, and now comes Psychic Teens, which weirdly enough might sonically fall right in between. Described by the band as "the time you saw your creepy metalhead brother at 80's night" which isn't really that far off. Imagine a sound that was equal parts dirgey psychedelic metal, and broody deep vocal-ed goth, and you'd have the Psychic Teens, and we have to say, it's a pretty bad ass sound. Especially if you're tired of all the wimpy twee eighties throwbacks, this is more like a metalized Sisters Of Mercy or Kommunity FK or Fields Of The Nephilim, with some thick squalls of blown out shoegaze psychedelia mixed in for good measure. The sound is dark and gloomy, a little poppy, a lot heavy, the guitars thick and crunchy, the vocals deep and dramatic and wreathed in echo, this is the sort of eighties throwback we can get behind for sure. And these three songs have definitely whetted our appetite big time!
The accompanying video is appropriately VHS looking, mostly live footage of the band, but super grainy and gristly, with plenty of old school interference, the pic flickering and flipping, as if it was being viewed on an old TV with a busted horizontal hold, a playback of an old videotape that had been in a box under the stairs for the last twenty years. Awesome.
Nicely packaged in a cool old school style VHS case, with printed grey on white covers, and recorded onto a white VHS tape, includes a download coupon as well!
LIMITED TO 75 COPIES!!
The press release for this record claims that it attempts to "fill the gap between the 70s and the new millenium, blending gospel & soul vocals, Afrobeat rhythms, jazz & funk licks with wicked electronics", but uh... they forgot to confess it's *bad*. This is
For every one who has been digging Zombi and Majeure, and the various other soundmakers mining eighties sci-fi VHS tapes to create retro futuristic synthgroove funk jams for smokey chrome and neon danceclubs, the sort of sounds you might have heard cyborgs shaking their mechanical thangs to in Logan's Run or Blade Runner, well, then prepare yourself for the oddly monickered Publicist, aka Sebastian Thomson, drummer for electronic post rockers Trans Am, whose latest, Keep It Off The Record, is a killer assemblage of fuzzy sci-fi synths, vocodered vocals, live drums and programmed beats, all woven into some seriously propulsive robotic cyber synthfunk grooviness.
"Hand To Mouth" is the party jam of the year, assuming that year is 1985, super hooky, and fuzzy, and groovy, the synths fuzzy and buzzy, the vocals totally alien and psychedelic, and the live drums/drum machine combo super intense and propulsive and yeah, funky. Some crazy catchy retro futurefunk for sure. "Miscalculation" is no slouch either, another disco flecked, dizzying synth funk workout, that sounds like the soundtrack to a chase scene (through a futuristic club of course) on Buck Rogers, laced with huge spaced out swath of cosmic synth shimmer, draped over that relentlessly percolating futurefunk pulse.
"Schnell Und Sauber" is the most krautrock of the bunch, a driving Kraftwerkian Autobahn worthy krautsynth workout, with driving rhythms and lush layered synths that throb and pulse, the real drums here in full effect.
The flipside starts out with the title track, total eighties electro pop, sort of Zapp via Daft Punk via Zombi if that makes any sense, groovy and funky, but also slightly ominous and cinematic, and still infused with that sort of krautrock core. And finally, the record finishes off with the epic "Self Similar", a soaring pulsing synthdrone workout, that is a total Goblin sci-fi dancefloor destroyer, another one of those jams that sounds like the music behind the credits of some lost Euro sc-fi B move VHS, moody and slightly minor key, the synths swirling and pulsing, propulsive and motorik, the sound groovy, but equally haunting and hypnotic.
