Cyclic Defrost

Stasis Duo – Untitled (L’innomoble)

2010-09-02T14:43:41Z

The cover of Stasis Duo’s untitled album goes some way to representing the music contained therein: faint streaks of grey are smeared across a white backdrop, dappled in faint digital grain, suggesting a barren, binary form of isolation. All tracks are untitled and utilise similar sounds: extreme high sine tones, like the empty sampler noise of Japanese onkyo improviser Sachiko M. Unlike her, Stasis Duo push these tones into action, so they gently waver, like lengths of string blowing in the wind. Occasionally bits of grit flicker past, but otherwise little happens. Track 4 for instance is so high that it exists more as presence than sound, a painful absorption of electronics into the brain, like the security devices used in the UK to deter youth from loitering around corner shops.

Its baffling that anyone might willingly choose to listen to these sounds.

Joshua Meggitt

Stasis Duo – Untitled (L’innomoble) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Jahcoozi – Barefoot Wanderer (Bpitch Control)

2010-09-02T13:29:43Z

Over two preceding albums, 2005′s Pure Breed Mongrel (Kitty-Yo) and 2007′s Blitz ‘N’ Ass (A-Sound), Berlin-based multinational trio Jahcoozi have generated a substantial global fanbase that’s seen them go on to collaborate with the likes of Modeselektor, Anti Pop Consortium and Buraka Som Sistema, whilst managing to adeptly balance elements of dub, dancehall and leftfield electro with an in-your-face attitude drawn more from hiphop and post-Digital Hardcore punk. Three years on, this third album Barefoot Wanderer, their first for Bpitch Control in many senses represents the trio’s most cohesive and smooth-sounding collection to date. It’s also an album that’s immediately obviously touched by the influence of dubstep – indeed the majority of the eleven tracks here writhe with a thick sub-bass presence, but while it certainly incorporates its sonic hallmarks it never really becomes subsumed into that particular sub-genre.

Smooth, swaggering tracks such as the loping, dub-bass driven opening title track see vocalist Sasha Perera sliding effortlessly into a honeyed style that’s far more characterised by ‘proper’ singing rather than the MC-tinged delivery of previous Jahcoozi albums – indeed, the almost dub-soul hewn ‘Barricaded’ sees her almost injecting a Bjork-esque chanteuse lilt at points. Rather than diluting proceedings though, it’s precisely this increased focus on vocal melodics that serves to bring the dark, bass-driven murk and snapping rhythms powering beneath to even more potent levels. It’s something that becomes particularly apparent throughout the numerous consistently inspired collaborations that appear here, with Anti Pop Consortium’s M. Sayyid’s harsher MC stylings proving to be the perfect rough foil to Perera’s teasing backing vocal harmonies on ‘Powerdown Blackout’. Elsewhere, Deadbeat’s ‘Stalker’ mix of ‘Watching You’ sees Perera’s disembodied sounding, delayed-out vocals flitting like a ghost in the machine through six minutes of woozy, narcotic-sounding digi-dub haze in what’s easily one of this album’s biggest highlights, while the biggest curveball here, a dubstep-flirtatious cover of The Cure’s ‘Close To Me’ even manages to throw some new feminine angles on the original without sliding into kitsch. The substantial Jahcoozi fanbase shouldn’t be disappointed with Barefoot Wanderer.

Chris Downton

Jahcoozi – Barefoot Wanderer (Bpitch Control) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Morgan Packard – Moment Again Elsewhere (Anticipate)

2010-09-02T07:54:04Z

Ezekiel Honig’s Anticipate label champions a low-key, domestic form of techno that seems largely to have disappeared. Similar productions used to proliferate back in the early days of microhouse, when labels like Scape, Mille Plateaux and Plug Research peddled variants of bedroom-bound 4/4, pre-dubstep bass experiments and faux hip-hop tomfoolery. The increased dominance of the dancefloor, and the death of the chill-out room, brought functional requirements that killed the softer regions of microhouse, and transformed the harder forms into Minimal.

Morgan Packard’s Moment Again Elsewhere generally fits this description, yet Packard takes a more limber approach, with pieces flitting between identifiable genre structures and more freeform abstraction. After the snippet intro of ‘Ready’ ‘Unveil’ features buried piano chords and digital chimes, nodding to a lazy house beat. ‘Persist’ explores a kooky ambient-dubstep hybrid akin to 10-20, and ‘Although’ sags with overweight bass presence, debris swilling to and fro to a bare hip-hop pattern. Elsewhere acoustic instruments dominate, in addition to the near ubiquitous piano: ‘Explain’ is led by lurching clarinet runs, while the reverberant piano notes and wheezy accordion bellows of ‘Allow’ recalls Swedish indie folkster Rickard Javerling. These homespun charms – it’s rhythms untethered, clouds of granular flotsam blowing across the spectrum – are welcoming after the flood of overly quantised, EQed bangers.

Joshua Meggitt

Morgan Packard – Moment Again Elsewhere (Anticipate) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Serph – Vent (Noble)

2010-09-02T07:23:51Z

The cover art for mysterious Tokyoite Serph’s second album is a line-drawn montage of images reminiscent of Where the Wild Things Are, Tolkien and the doodlings on a fifteen-year-old’s school textbook. The sounds contained on the album within suit that image just fine, full of child-like wonder at the juxtaposition and interplay of sounds, although I must admit that I cannot hear much of a Tolkienesque influence, (maybe Led Zeppelin just ruined it for me, linking grand battles between the massed forces of evil with intricate axemanship and Robert Plant’s warblings inexorably in my mind forever) although maybe Vent could be played at a Hobbit’s knees-up.

With purportedly only three years of musicianship behind him, Serph has produced a delightful album that flits between reference points and styles, never settling for too long. There’s some Boards of Canada style melodic electronica, some hints of the Symbolic Interaction label, the faux-jazz orchestral feel of Burnt Freidman circa Con Ritmo, and the cheeky downbeat textures of Hull’s finest, the Pork label. Serph’s music has enough ‘edge’ to it, it never feels overly syrupy or too cutsie. The one criticism that I would level at Vent is that it’s a very BUSY album, there’s very little room for contemplation. Many contemporary electronica artists tend to fill their compositions to the brim, with layer upon layer of sounds, textures and rhythms that can almost become a touch overwhelming if one is not in a conducive mood.

Feather features a stunning introduction of overlayed plucked string instruments, before the rhythm kicks it into a universe of sunny skies, complete with complex piano motifs bouncing off against jazzy drum rolls and hand claps. Mint’s “Sketches of Spain” style mournful intro descends into blunted hip hop beats and a walking upright bass line. Then suddenly, a change occurs, the tempo is almost doubled and the same constituents take on a whole new feeling – Japanese chip-tune music for body-popping robots?

Iceyedit’s deep bass, folktronic guitars and pointillist details are probably a good summation of where the album is at, as a whole. Title track Vent has strings, synths and percussive bottles colliding, before a post-garage Burial-style beat ticks in, complete with ratcheting bicycle freewheels and cooing Japanese female vocals. Rounding out the album, Planet’s drum & bass style two step beat and starry widescreen touches round out a satisfying and engaging listen from an artist that is sure to grow with maturity on each forthcoming release.

Oliver Laing

Serph – Vent (Noble) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Kabutogani – Bektop (Mille Plateaux)

2010-09-02T07:22:27Z

Despite his moniker of choice being Japanese in origin (the English translation being ‘horseshoe crab’), Kabutogani is actually a French producer who first emerged back in 2001 with his minimalist glitch-oriented ‘Control Design’ CDR collection on Guerilla Underground. ‘Bektop’ represents Kabutogani’s fourth artist album in total, and certainly conforms to the recently relaunched Mille Plateaux label’s minimal, clicks & cuts aesthetic, indeed, harsh, cold and brittle are perhaps the best words to encapsulate the predominant mood here. Composed entirely from rhythmic glitch elements, the twelve tracks gathered here see Kabutogani assembling a collection that’s austere to the point of severity at moments, and while the jarring textures may prove forbidding for some, there’s certainly plenty of unexpected beauty to be found here.

While opener ‘Protocole 1′ sees Kabutogani seemingly trying to test the listener’s threshold from the outset with its piercing, threshold of discomfort high-frequency tones, persistence is rewarded as a slide into fluttery clicks and distantly looming sub-bass tones signals the transition into ‘CXEMA’s slow-motion glide through doomy synth tones, jittering pin-prick rhythms and vaguely dubby bass elements (though there’s still plenty of piercing, high frequency thorns to be found in amongst the lusher parts). ‘Seisen’ meanwhile sees harsh walls of machine noise and what sounds like the rush of downloading data echoing against relentless, clipped midtempo rhythms in an offering that nods overtly towards Prefuse 73-esque leftfield hiphop at points amidst cavernous, doomy sounding drone-scapes, while ‘Ducts’ offers up the closest thing to a broken, substantially devolved techno pulse here as glittering melodic elements float against a treacherous backbone of crunching static. Meticulously produced dark stuff that’s likely to go down well with fans of ultra-minimalist glitch and clicks & cuts along the lines of Oval and Alva Noto.

Chris Downton

Kabutogani – Bektop (Mille Plateaux) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Lobisomem – Onze Padras (Tall Corn Music)

2010-09-01T11:42:34Z

“Haunting” is a frustrating word. It’s been so overused as to become generic. When we use the word “haunting” to discuss instrumental sample-based pop albums these days we tend to mean “melancholic” or “not many songs to dance to”. With Onze Pedras, Lobisomem submit that when we use the word “haunting” we should try to ‘Mean What We Say’. It’s a compelling argument.

Full of elusive moments and littered with ear-blink-and-you’ll-miss-them mini melodies, this record is immersive and rewarding. ‘Incumbent Upon Us’ is perhaps the album’s mission statement. Lots of cymbals and cute little post-pop jams kick off our journey though the haunted house. Look out for g-g-g-g-ghosts. Look out for s-s-s-s-strings. Revel in the three minute j-j-j-j-journey.

It may just be because Lobisomem is Portuguese for Werewolf that the mood is a little spooky, but I’ll wager this abum is haunted. The will’o’the wisps in ‘Consonants and Vowels’ are arresting. ‘She’s Made of Clay’ is a playful funeral dirge. ‘Saidera Harmony’ sounds like all the souls that ever were singing together in unison. Without being sad, or scary, or depressing, or shocking Onze Pedras is haunting. It’ll stay with you.

James d’Apice

Lobisomem – Onze Padras (Tall Corn Music) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Reunion Sacred Ibis – Antikythera (Monstera Deliciosa)

2010-09-01T03:50:32Z

Alternately dubbed “bloop noise” and “a Nintendo DS that sounds like piss” by Newcastle bedroom label Monstera Deliciosa, Reunion Sacred Ibis is the searing work of Melbourne’s Cooper Bowman. With help from a distortion pedal, Bowman uses an old handheld Nintendo DS and its stylus to arrive at a primitive, caved-in take on glitch, noise, and chiptune. This 17-minute 3-inch CD, which comes shrouded in cover art by Michael Liestins from Cock Safari, ranges from harsh to beautiful while proving surprisingly listenable after some initial shock.

The disk is bookended by the bristling, interruption-laden ‘Pana-Wave 1’ and then ‘Pana-Wave 2’, which feels a bit more crumbling and mystical both. In between is ‘Forty Flying In Formation’, a seven-minute study in repetitive manipulations and modulations that finds an unlikely nest of melody and rhythm in its skewed patterns. The title track, meanwhile, is all harsh burn and gurgle, like a close-contact splash of acid. It gets pretty deep and busy before exiting in mid-throe, at times tapping an incidental bass throb and flirting with shards of what resembles channel surfing.

Even setting aside the novelty of how Bowman makes these ruptured sounds, Reunion Sacred Ibis is a project that grows more and more interesting as the tracks progress and we give them multiple listens. Bowman’s fragmented tones tingle, chirp, hiccup, and crash, hinting all the time at something like transcendence.

Doug Wallen

Reunion Sacred Ibis – Antikythera (Monstera Deliciosa) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

The Simonsound – Reverse Engineering (First Word/FUSE)

2010-08-29T09:57:40Z

The Simonsound debut album, Reverse Engineering, could be a library record, but straight out of 2010. Incorporating mood music from the 1950’s to now, music that could be for TV or film, throwing down some cosmically funky cover versions of classic tracks with the moog to the fore.

Simon James and Matt Ford (aka DJ Format) make up The Simonsound, a pedigree of beat makers and genre hoppers, all knowing to the eternal beat and the science of sampleadelia.

Not taking themselves too seriously enables The Simonsound to pull off some great cover versions on this release, “Tour De Mars” gives Kraftwerk a run for their money, and “Its Just Begun” injects some seriously funky electro into the funk classic. “Moon Rocks” shines as a favourite for me, sharp jazz room drumming, a krautrock grind, and cosmic synth lines petered with movie dialogue, launching the track to somewhere in outerspace where no one has ever been, a monster of a track. “Inside The Capsule” could be John Carpenter, or Martin Denny, strange exotic soundscapes. “Hole In The Head” strips things back with a straight drum break, bubbling electronics and fuzz guitar with somber string samples, while “The One That Got Away” sounds like it was plucked straight from a cross continental spy movie soundtrack. “Between The Wake And The Sleep” is reminiscent of brooding Portishead or Lamb classic trip-hop stylings. “Call Of The Siren”, split into two parts of uplifting ambience together with disembodied ghostly female voice as instrument, beautiful.

A fun and refreshing funky album, watch this space.

Wayne Stronell

The Simonsound – Reverse Engineering (First Word/FUSE) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

$.99 Dreams – Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet EP (self released)

2010-08-29T09:58:15Z

You’re already aware of how much I love $.99 Dreams, with their hybrid of spiritual cosmic jazz, grinding hip-hop beats, and murky analogue electronics. Scratching around for tracks on the web, some previous digital releases that will astound, the recent 12” vinyl release, and the fantastic 2010 album, it is now easier to get your ears around the $.99 Dreams sound, quickly following the release of 2010 with this digital only EP, Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet.

With this release, $.99 Dreams turn up their cosmic oscillators, like a mix of Malcom Catto, Sun Ra and the Silver Apples. “2010” opens with a tribal exotic ambience, before “Meteorite” amazes with its contemporary analogue mayhem, not unlike some of dubstep’s emerging hybrid producers, and some blind siding rolling drums, very reminiscent of Malcom Catto drums, or the psych-funk drum programming of MRR-ADM, this dirty drum sound suiting the $.99 Dreams rhythm section perfectly. “200 Million Miles Away” oozes Miles Davis electric period jazz, jamming with the Silver Apples on analogue oscillators. “Sirius & Vega” lays down more hard hitting drums, crazed saxophone, and just as crazed distorted electronics, while “Waiting For Rain” reminds me of electronic producer Move D’s electronic jazz experiments with proper jazz musicians. “The Question Remains” ends the EP with a straight up beat, threatening to break into a Latin swagger, but never quite getting there, as gurgling electronic bass washes from the core.

It seems criminal to me that originality of this caliber seems to go unnoticed, with their renowned live shows of almost doom proportions, and a growing discography of truly original future jazz, sounding like nothing else out there. Get your copy from their bandcamp here, www.ninetyninecentdreams.com.

Wayne Stronell

$.99 Dreams – Voyage To The Prehistoric Planet EP (self released) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

48/4 – Fictitious Seven No. 3 (The Frequency Lab)

2010-08-29T09:52:58Z

More in the Fictitious 7” series from The Frequency Lab, this time from an artist the crew hooked up with at local beat club 104 Collective early in 2010. After hearing the fresh ideas and sharp production of young local beat producer 48/4, The Frequency Lab just had to release his music to also introduce the world to the future beats and electronics of 48/4.

His first publicly available track, “Cake$” has The Frequency Lab stamp as a future classic, with a wonky leaning, yet more on the Dilla tip than the all out wonky productions of a growing scene of UK and American producers. 48/4 sticks with a hip-hop beat, morphing this with Joker and Starkey style analogue mayhem, taking a subtler approach with slowly morphing and building synth lines, weaving an intricate mood through the fog of deep electronic bass. The virtual flip-side has Monk Fly stripping back the rhythm, injecting his intergalactic liquid funk, emphasizing the half-step swing.

Available from www.thefrequencylab.com; as well as respected international digital outlets Boomkat, Junodownload, Emusic and iTunes. Support local and buy online, the Fictitious Seven Series is just about to make your top ten lists. Another absolutely essential release, you seriously need this.

Get down to the launch party on 10 September at Hermanns Bar, corner of Butlin and City Road, featuring 48/4, Monk Fly, Cleptoclectics, Benjamin Kinsman and Jonny Faith.

Wayne Stronell

48/4 – Fictitious Seven No. 3 (The Frequency Lab) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Monk Fly – Fictitious Seven No. 2 (The Frequency Lab)

2010-08-29T09:52:18Z

The Frequency Lab are following their compilation of future beat science with Jahtari style virtual 7” EP’s, with a deep dub remix on the virtual b-side. Know-U was first up in the series, which was seriously one of the best tracks of the year so far, label head honcho is second of the rank with “Bulleting”.

Glacial electronics pulse and oscillate around somber keys and a quasi dancehall stepper beat, another monster slab of Monk Fly cosmic funk, shunning current trends of overtly wonky electronics, taking its own path, shared by artists like Joker, who prefer the beat tight, and the synthesizers jamming in hyperspace. Jonny Faith takes on remix duties on the virtual b-side; skankin’ things up, and stripping things down to the riddim of gurgling bass and 8-bit electronics. While Monk Fly injects liquid funk into his tunes, Jonny Faith is shaping up to be one to watch, creating a hybrid of 8-bit dub, dubstep and hip-hop that will blow your mind. The bass and electronics on this EP are set to overload, and music of this quality deserves release on vinyl, I for one hope The Frequency Lab will commit some of their releases to wax in the future.

Available from www.thefrequencylab.com; as well as respected international digital outlets Boomkat, Junodownload and Emusic, or iTunes if you must. Not to be missed.

Wayne Stronell

Monk Fly – Fictitious Seven No. 2 (The Frequency Lab) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Death In June – Peaceful Snow/The Maverick Chamber 7″ (Extremocidente)

2010-08-29T00:15:40Z

This limited edition 45 from Portuguese label Extremocidente offers the first new material from Death In June since The Rule of Thirds in 2008. On this pink vinyl 7″, Douglas P continues to adopt a stripped-down approach to arrangement; but the big difference this time is that instead of acoustic guitar, the primary backing instrument – indeed the only backing instrument – is piano, played by Miro Snejdr. In DIJ’s extensive discography, there has never been anything quite like this. Snejdr has a liquid, Romantic style of playing, and his delicate, exquisitely nuanced style perfectly complements Douglas P’s rich baritone voice. ‘Peaceful Snow’, an instant classic, also includes some clever reverbed breath sounds – you can almost picture yourself in an alpine forest in the depths of winter, your breath misting on the air. ‘The Maverick Chamber’ has ghostly moans threaded through it, and it makes an ideal coupling with the A-side. The intriguing new direction and undoubted quality of these new songs leaves one impatient for the forthcoming DIJ longplayer.

Ewan Burke

Death In June – Peaceful Snow/The Maverick Chamber 7″ (Extremocidente) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Hrdvsion – Where Did You Just Go? (Wagon Repair/Inertia)

2010-08-29T00:11:53Z

As the younger brother of Cobblestone Jazz founder Mathew Jonson, Canadian producer Nathan Jonson received heavy exposure to electronic music from an early age, though in truth his wonky, contorted productions reveal an influence more indebted to the likes of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin, compared to the more streamlined techno stylings of his older sibling. As Hrdvsion (pronounced ‘Hardvision’), Jonson’s released a steady stream of 12”s on Wagon Repair and Itiswhatitis since 2002 whilst also remixing the likes of Milanese and Dominik Eulberg, though this latest release on Wagon Repair Where Did You Just Go? sees him only just now getting around to releasing his ‘proper’ debut album. It’s certainly an ambitiously eclectic collection that manages to cover an impressive range of divergent territory over its seventeen tracks. After opening track ‘Orange Juice’ offers up a suitably bizarre contorted and pitchshifted vocal intro that sees Jonson extolling the virtues of orange juice, the jittery, off-centre sounding ’842 Colours’ sees glittery ping-pong synth fragments bouncing over a shuffling backdrop of elastic bass-pulses and sudden drop-outs that hints towards a fractured Luke Vibert-esque sense of digi-funk at points.

By contrast, ‘Betrayed’ flirts with dancehall-meets-garage rhythmic stylings as it places flickering monophonic synth stabs against scissoring steppa breakbeats, before the head-scrambling ‘Bonker Brainss’ sends hiphop rhythms and grinding synth tones through a mass of treacherous pitchshifting and DSP trickery, only for delicate Plaid-esque synth melodies to drag proceedings out of the dark morass in favour of calmer waters. Dancefloors are also certainly well catered for here, with the spectacular ‘Closed Eyes’ going for maximum late night effect with its spectral blend of eerie delayed-out synth arpeggios, powerful techno rhythms and sudden spinbacks, while ‘Cause I Love You’ easily providess one of this album’s biggest highlights as it takes things out into seven minutes of glittering tech-y synth grandeur that nods as equally towards classic Italo-house as it does the Warp label. If you’re into robust dancefloor techno stylings given a headtwisting dose of mutated DNA contortion thrown into its system, Where Did You Just Go? is well worth seeking out.

Chris Downton

Hrdvsion – Where Did You Just Go? (Wagon Repair/Inertia) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Herv – Gang Molded (The Centrifuge)

2010-08-27T22:08:11Z

Occupying the sonic space somewhere between breakcore and post-Rephlex contorted beats, Dublin-based electronic producer Ewan Hennelly has been releasing tracks under the Herv moniker since 2002, and in the intervening years he’s managed to accumulate an impressive backcatalogue of web-only and CDR releases on labels including Acroplane, Cock Rock Disco and Slow Loris. Having made the decision to release all of his music for free on netlabels from now on in 2006, this latest album ‘Gang Molded’ arrives as a download-only release through UK-based electronic arts collective The Centrifuge. Opening track ‘I Didn’t Hear Anyone Asking For A Rewind’ immediately calls to mind enigmatic Cornwall resident The Tuss or Squarepusher in one of his more acid fixated modes as it threads stabbing retro-rave piano riffs and 303 squelches through a battery of contorted happy-hardcore rhythms and jagged breaks, before the more bass-donminated ‘Bad Science’ swaggers off on a more broken dancehall-informed tip, only to end up tearing itself to pieces amidst furious volleys of pure junglist ‘Amen’ break devastation.

While there’s certainly plenty of headspinning stops and breakdowns packed in amongst the nine tracks collected here, there’s an abiding melodic, almost pop sensibility at work here that renders ‘Gang Molded’ an extremely accessible example of the breakcore genre that keeps a focus on rocking a dancefloor at its heart. It’s a trait that’s particularly obvious on ‘Fair’s Fair’ as distorted generic electro-house synths get pushed through all manner of turntable spinbacks amidst day-glo rave-y synthwork, as well as ‘Now That’s What I Call Positivity’ as cliched female RNB vocals get shredded and contorted amidst a veritable forest of bass-fuelled tics, spasms and sudden drop-outs. All in all, ‘Gang Molded’ represents an impressive album offering from Herv that you can download for free.

Chris Downton

Herv – Gang Molded (The Centrifuge) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

The Books – The Way Out (Spunk)

2010-08-27T13:08:33Z

It has long disappointed me that, unlike in the visual arts, most musical appropriation has failed to go much deeper than the æsthetic level. Whereas in visual arts, whole worlds of meaning are summoned by referencing older works, and that meaning becomes part of the fibre of the new work, in the musical world outside of academic circles, source sound is sampled and referenced merely on the basis of how it sounds – most meaning associated with original source material is left to the side, as long as the sounds work. I might be going out on a limb here and perhaps The Books really have no conscious idea of what they’re doing, but I’d like to think they do know, and that they’ve created one of the most satisfying works of musical appropriation, on all levels, that I’ve encountered.

The dominant (though certainly not sole) source of sound is 80s relaxation/self-help cassettes and video tapes. These are subtly edited. ‘Group Autogenics I’ starts the album with the generic deep, relaxed male voice of the new-age (which mostly seemed to look up to HAL from 2001 – A Space Odyssey as their inspiration) intoning “Hello, greetings and welcome/welcome to a new beginning, for this tape will serve you as a new beginning/That’s right, a new beginning, as we’re about ready to begin”. This is typical of the archness with which the soothing voices are manipulated. They sound like they’re saying perfectly reasonable and very serious things, until you actually snap out of passiveness into which the music may lull you and listen to the syntax. It’s the first layer of meaning, sitting just above the slow motion wash of sound which serves as the next.

This is then juxtaposed with ‘A Cold Freezin’ Night’ where a male child and female child exchange dialogue across the the sampleosphere – “…I wish I was a boy/Kill ‘em/I’m gonna kill you/I’m gonna rip your hair off/You are such a nerd/asshole…” over a jittery bass and drum dance that might have been a snatch of Graceland outtakes chopped and looped, panned and compressed. ‘I Am Who I Am’ returns sampling to the jungles of Brian Eno and David Byrne, slashing a ranting preacher over vaguely industrial loops of digitally swirled rhythm. ‘Chain Of Missing Links’ settles back into new-age wash, advising one to “allow yourself to release through the nose, through your mouth and into the spaces/located just about an inch or an inch and a half below your metaphorical heart/and about two inches behind who you were meant to be.” ‘The Story Of Hip Hop’ later in the album’s sequence fits phrases from a 1970s christian sect’s children’s album (the title star being a rabbit) into a dazzling sequence of generic hiphop breakbeats intricately sequenced to match the accident prone nature of the star.

A written description can’t begin to capture the scope of The Way Out. But it is where overall meaning emerges that things get really interesting. The slightly twisted spoken work segments could just be comedic pranks, but The Books keep the settings subtle, so the seriousness treads the line between sincere and mocking in a manner that never lets you settle on one side of that divide. And by twisting self-help words, an ultimate symbol of the self-worship of late capitalism, with the darker undercurrents that we know we are surrounded by every day – violence (and in children!), religious crusade, emotional isolation – but which narcissism works to deny, the album draws into sharp focus the hypocracy of our culture. On one side, we are urged to look into ourselves to save ourselves, while on the other, legitimate problems are characatured into entertainment. This is the kind of depth, created through the layering of reference, sound and style that is normally missing from musical appropriation.

The Books themselves do a brilliant job of laying out a conceptual framework at http://thebooksmusic.tumblr.com/. To sum up The Way Out, though, it would be best to leave with the final, soothing (expertly edited) words that conclude the album on ‘Group Autogenetics II’ over soft, deep digital percussion booms and airy ambience:
“And this becomes your reality. That’s right. And at any time you feel yourself weaken in any way you will think the word ‘food’. This is your trigger word and the moment you think or say the word, from this very moment, you will only eat. You gain enormously in weight, and all desire for self-esteem will disappear, and so it is, and so it is. And you now have an unseen assistance: And it feels so good, so relaxed, and so at ease, and you’re becoming the world and everyone in it.”

Adrian Elmer

The Books – The Way Out (Spunk) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Bitcrush – From Arcs To Embers (n5MD)

2010-08-27T08:05:28Z

Mike Cadoo spent most of a decade in the IDM duo Gridlock before starting the solo venture Bitcrush to explore his resurgent fondness for live instrumentation, vocals, and shoegaze textures. Since then he has released five albums, from the 2004 debut Enarc to this year’s more ambient Of Embers. Songs from each are reinterpreted on this collection – thus its title. Not having heard any of the originals, there’s no way for me to know where Cadoo’s work stops and that of the international slate of remixers starts, but that doesn’t spoil the riches of this hour-plus experience.

The best track is the first, a cleansing take on ‘Post’ by the German solo artist Bersarin Quartett. It’s spacious and chill, the deconstructive drums and eventual sheet of synth pointing to post-rock and ambient respectively. From there, Iceland’s Worm Is Green brings a hip-hop thump to the more clear-cut ‘Untilted’, while the UK solo project Winterlight conjures electronic shoegaze worthy of a film score on ‘Every Sunday’. The San Francisco band Stripmall Architecture turns ‘Every Ghost Has Its Spectre’ into something called ‘Bitcrush in Dub’, relishing the tension between a squishy centre and the noise scratching at the sides. The Dutch duo Funckarma then seems to turn ‘Colder’ inside out.

Sequenced as it is, the collection’s second half follows a trajectory towards a more indie vibe, with Cadoo’s vocals often appearing at some level. Oregon solo artist Jatun takes ‘Waiting For Something’ from ambient dissolve to guitar-raked drama, whereas the Italian duo Vanessa Van Basten finds lush folktronica and then indie rock in ‘An Island A Peninsula’. San Francisco artist Near The Parenthesis applies keyboards and beats to his eight-minute remix of ‘The Days We Spent Within’, the Italian band Port-Royal scale ‘Of Embers’ back to a mellow survey of familiar elements, and Canadian artist SubtractiveLAD makes ‘Of Days’ roomy enough to bring the record full circle.

Either as an introduction to Bitcrush or just some impressionistic detour, here’s a bliss-out record with lots of ideas, details, and left turns to admire and appreciate.

Doug Wallen

Bitcrush – From Arcs To Embers (n5MD) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Various Artists – Elaste 3: Super Motion Disco (Compost)

2010-08-26T07:00:56Z

Compost’s Elaste series reaches its third volume with Super Motion Disco, after Volume 1’s Slow Motion Disco and 2’s Cosmic Disco. Super Motion Disco is not some new fangled clunkily-named micro genre, we’re still looking at Cosmic/Italo disco, and as usual compiler and DJ Dompteur Mooner has unearthed a slew of weird synth-heavy dancefloor gems. While the tone is blindingly luminescent throughout, Mooner’s tastes are as wide as those of the pioneering Italian DJs Daniele Baldelli and Beppe Loda he so admires. “It’s no wonder that thousands of fans were waiting outside Discoteca Cosmic, Typhoon and other clubs to hear a surprising mix that could be anything from early German electronics to cumbia. DJs in Italy had the freedom to experiment with music… The crowd expected it and welcomed them to play crazier than any other DJ.”

Sounds like a golden time, and it’s easy to share Mooner’s enthusiasm from his selection here, which ranges from the frighteningly prescient space disco of Queen Samantha’s ‘Take A Chance’, which surges forth, Lindstrom-like, on a cosy bed of gasped ‘Ahhs’, to the pre-DFA laser-strafing prog-stomp of Moebius’s ‘Urth’. ‘Beats of Love’ by Nacht Und Nebel chugs patiently like Mark E; Tabu’s ‘Ellein’ skirts dangerously close to Scorpions power-ballad dirge but is redeemed by funky syn-drum rolls; The Deep Fix’s ‘Time Centre’ centres on barren Kraftwerk tones and sonar blips, like Sahko played by George Clinton; while the polysexual pogo of Pollyester’s ‘Beuys Boys’ oddly recalls Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’. The final ‘dub mix’ of Toto’s ‘Africa’ by Key of Dreams may be divisive, but most who come this far ought to dig the poorly-processed voice and distorted keyboard riffs. I certainly did.

Joshua Meggitt

Various Artists – Elaste 3: Super Motion Disco (Compost) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Ektoise (Purity Device) – The Single Act Of Being (777 Operations)

2010-08-26T09:35:08Z

Helmed by producer Greg Reason, Brisbane-based band Ektoise (formerly known as Purity Device) managed to attract considerable local acclaim upon the release of their 2008 self-titled debut EP, with the resulting dark fusion of electronic and processed instrumental elements inspiring comparisons with the likes of Coil, Nine Inch Nails and Ulver. In the wake of the band’s recent limited four-part seasonally themed CDR EP series, this debut album ‘The Single Act Of Being’ sees Reason continuing to expand his considerable ambitions out even further, and indeed it’s no real surprise to discover that Ektoise’s live line-up currently consists of eight members, such is the breadth of sonic territory and moods covered amongst the ten tracks collected here. While the aforementioned comparisons to Trent and Co. might suggest a gothy industrial at work here however, in reality the predominant mood captured here is one that leans far further towards shoegaze-informed post-rock and dark ambient / drone, with a virtual kitchen sink’s worth of other genres rearing up in the mix at various points. Emerging from a swirling backdrop of eerie synth arpeggios and clicking glitchy rhythms, opening track ‘Rivers Of Enkephalin’ kicks proceedings straight off into sinister, steelplated leftfield hiphop territory that sits somewhere between Amon Tobin and El-P, shortly before fierce walls of metallic guitar feedback power things towards a triumphantly flaming conclusion that ends in a mass of DSP contortion.

The misleadingly-titled ‘Miasma’ meanwhile sees feathery acoustic guitars slotting in alongside overdriven power chords in a wide-eyed moment that almost calls to mind one of Sigur Ros’ sweeping, orchestral arrangements – indeed, it’s easily the most ‘optimistic’ offering to be found here. Elsewhere, ‘Active Denial System’ manages to fuse My Bloody Valentine’s blissfully shearing sonic attack with the sorts of furious metallic fretwork you might expect from Cannibal Corpse with surprisingly convincing results, before abruptly sending things straight out into woozy hiphop-laced jazz for the outro section, blunted beats sliding effortlessly beneath smoky contorted horns, while ‘Euclidean Curve’ even sees some piano house elements creeping in amongst the distorted bass and clattering broken drum rhythms before ‘The Great Perpendicular Path’ wanders out into seven minutes of vast droning dark ambience coloured with the eerie howl of pitched-down guitar feedback and spectral voice harmonies that evokes an atonal yet exquisitely controlled atmosphere similar to that of Ligeti’s themes for the obelisk in Kubrick’s ’2001.’ While genre-crossing exercises of this type often end in disaster, if not sheer clumsiness, with the exception of ‘So Slowly’s atypical wander into tepid ‘adult contemporary’ pop stylings, this debut album sees Ektoise crossing established boundaries with a level of adeptness and confidence that’s almost intimidating at points. Well worth investigation.

Chris Downton

Ektoise (Purity Device) – The Single Act Of Being (777 Operations) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Stockhausen – Plus/Minus (Hat(now)Art)

2010-08-25T10:44:17Z

These three works represent some of Stockhausen’s earliest musical revolutions, here devoted to furthering Schoenberg’s serial technique beyond the value of pitch into determining ‘every aspect of sound-types and their distribution in time and space.’ Most clearly evident in these unusually calm and unhurried works is the influence of Messiaen, under whom Stockhausen studied in the early fifites, and through him residuals of Webern, particularly the use of pithy, pointillistic gestures and vast shifts in pitch and dynamics.

The opening Refrain No. 11 from 1959 surprisingly brings to mind Feldman in its patient unfolding of sparse, resonant patterns of piano, celesta and percussion. The title refers to pauses which come between periodic bursts of activity, so patient that ‘Restraint’ might be more appropriate, which along with the lounge-y instrumentation almost recalls the work of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Kreuzespiel No 1/7 of 1951 proceeds at a similarly languid pace yet calls for more dramatic gestures. Jagged piano chords jolt the piece to life as the clarinet stutters zigzagging high-low shapes.

Plus/Minus (1963) receives its premiere recording, the score of which began life as a drawing in the sand while Stockhausen was holidaying with his mistress in Sicily, and wound up a complex 14 page ‘set of specifications’ comprising grids, graphic symbols and verbal instructions. Musically Plus/Minus is considerably more immediately involving than its predecessors, as brass and winds tussle for attention amid distant piano and vibraphone decorations. Gestures are repeated into absurdity, from percussive woodpecker taps to looped piano trills, with aggressive flurries from all players quickly curtailed, and depicted as equally futile, perhaps suggesting the creative cul-de-sac resulting from late serialism. Structurally there’s no development or particular highlight, rather the whole hangs suspended, devoid of central focus like a Jackson Pollock, but the engagement of the Ives Ensemble in realising these obscure demands is never less than thrilling.

Joshua Meggitt

Stockhausen – Plus/Minus (Hat(now)Art) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.

Autistici – Slow Temperature: Early Works Volume 2 (Audiobulb)

2010-08-25T10:42:47Z

Autistici is David Newman, producer of lowercase digitalia for the likes of 12k and head of the Audiobulb label. Slow Temperature is his second instalment of previously unreleased material, this time from between 2001-2005, after April’s Detached Metal Voice; Early Works Volume 1. For a subsequently-compiled collection of presumably unrelated tracks and off-cuts, Slow Temperature demonstrates a surprising degree of coherence and completion.

Favouring clunky bleep tones and modulating digital gloop, all clouded in random hiss, much of Slow Temperature recalls the likes of Daphne Oram, clipped Radiophonic Workshop products wedged into microsound structures. Source material derives from Newman’s domestic and local environments, evident from track titles (‘Cutlery’, ‘Farm’), and/or personal concerns (‘Counting Sleep’, ‘Workshop for Ambitious Dreamers’), and the music proceeds in a fittingly low-key, welcoming manner. Introductory ‘Waking the Sky’ features strings of bird calls announcing the day over murky haze and tape warble. ‘Stone Steps Into Water’ skips small blip pebbles into puddles, following the ripples in their dank circles. ’14 Switches on a Hidden Wall’, the longest piece here at ten minutes, coats rusty chimes and a sustained organ tone in flange and echo, while the two-minute sketch of ‘Soft Grey Generator’ pans crackle across the spectrum, and is just as pleasing.

Joshua Meggitt

Autistici – Slow Temperature: Early Works Volume 2 (Audiobulb) is a post from: Cyclic Defrost Magazine.