A review of Aphex Twin's "Syro"

Richard D. James has fucked himself in the ass.

How was he supposed to top Drukqs?

How could he?

I was actually left breathless the first time I heard "Mt Saint Michel+Saint Michaels Mount" and the simple, raw, sorrowful beauty (not to mention the object lesson in juxtaposition) of "Avril 14th" was just unmatched. Then, of course, there's the nightmare soundscapes of "gwarek2".
Following up Drukqs was going to be insanely difficult, but following it up after thirteen fucking years?
Shit, man.

Syro is, undeniably, Aphex Twin, but a lot more subdued that I would have hoped for his return; I don't want Aphex Twin appropriate for Sunday morning tea consumption, I want microscopic lacerations all over the surface of my brain. To put it another way: "Come on, you cunt, let's have some Aphex acid". The restrained feel of Syro could stem from the fact that a lot of it might have been created over seven years ago. Rumor has it that, in his absence, James crafted anywhere from six to more than a thousand albums, and that Syro is twelve tracks selected from this wealth of unreleased material. That would certainly account for the lack of cohesion.

For me, I didn't start actively enjoying the album until about halfway through, when "CIRCLONT6A (Syrobonkus Mix)" came on. It has a nice, thick, blurred wall of sound which I most closely associate with AT. Things continued to be good with "Fz pseudotimestretch+e+3", which, with its elasticized beat and that particular strummed chord progression, has a touch of both something from Coil's "Love's Secret Domain" and Gorillaz "El Manana". Way too short though. The mid-way nugget of good stuff extended into "CIRCLONT14 (Shrymoming Mix)" and its soft, eerie opening sinking into its splintered electro jizz and concluded with "Syro u473t8+e (Piezoluminescence Mix)". "S950tx16wasr10 (Earth Portal Mix)" has some interesting stuff as well and the album closer, "Aisatsana", is very nice, a simple piano piece that would feel at home echoing through some long abdicated fairytale kingdom. Based on the track titles and the rumor of Syro's cut and paste origins, I think I want more from CIRCLONT, if that is, in fact, one of the lost albums and not just some of James' buzz gub.

Am I the biggest Aphex Twin fan in the world? Does James’ twisted, demonic slash of a grin confront me every time I look into a mirror? Do I think in circuitry? No, but I am a fan and would be surprised if someone could convince me there's a better AT album than Drukqs...unless that someone is Richard D. James.

What I'm taking from Syro is that Aphex Twin is back and, hopefully, he'll soon have something amazing to show us.

A review of Maxi Bacon's "Maci Baxon"

You know those albums of classical music made for in utero babies? This eats those, shits them out and then eats them again. Some of my most uncomfortable listening experiences have come courtesy of Mindless Self Indulgence, Coil and Error, to name a few. But even those artists had BPMs.

I don't want to spoil the surprise for you or color your time with Maci Baxon, so I'll just touch on some highlights. A lot of this album sounds as if someone stomped on a bunch of CDs and then stapled the bits together. The first track alone contains some hip hop, some Looney Toons  and some circus music. Over the course of the nine track, twenty-six minute album, crafted lovingly/hatefully by Scott Sinclair (aka Company Fuck) and Freeka Tet (aka Sgure), you'll encounter total eradication in the jaws of an inexorable metal mouth, robots having diarrhea, an old car with whooping cough, tape decks vomiting, the death throes of a handful of small kitchen appliances, and, finally, Frank SInatra telling you that he's going to love you.

Standouts include "analchemy"*, which, in whatever nightmare world this is considered pop music, would be the radio single, "a666 tamagotchihunter 
pikootee raper gnochi cooker pouik wheeler kuchipatchi trasher" and "careless
 sniffle", which centers around someone with a cold singing George Michael's 
"Careless Whisper" while, in the left channel, we hear some creature 
gleefully eating a watermelon...or performing cunnilingus** before suffering 
a grand mal seizure. The right channel stars some tiny things farting. This is the longest and most hilarious track on the album.

One thing I can say without a shred of doubt: Maxi Bacon are the finest crafters of robotic bodily functions I have ever experienced. I have never heard anything like this and never want or need to again. What would be the point? I've seen the singularity, and it's scored by Maxi Bacon.





* A fantastic and horribly intriguing elision, no?

** Or performing cunnilingus on a watermelon, I suppose.

A review of Alessandro Cortini's "Forse 2"

I'll save you some time: if you liked Forse 1, go get Forse 2.
For the most part, this is a much colder album than its predecessor, just in time for winter.

Forse 2 starts in space with "Canta" (perhaps where we left off after Forse 1? ). The instruments are cold and old, but the notes are warm and reassuring, until something goes wrong; a change in trajectory? Meteors? Interference.
Bursting through the atmosphere and bearing witness.

"Cerca" feels a bit like "Canta" with the (almost) alert noise which starts off smooth and then gets distorted.

"Conta", at the very start, sounds like a variation of "A Warm Place". Nice. Evolves into questing through huge ice caverns. Then, the caverns start to glow. Reds and oranges, but they are still ice. And there is something alive in these caves.

"Grigia" is sharp and piercing, the light reflecting off the ice. Blinding. Movement in the motes in ones' eye. A melody emerges, high and stinging, then distortion and dissolution. Melting ice / snow.

"Lenta" sounds like something from Forse 1. Plodding, deep, contemplative. Emerges from its own shell and then grows large enough to swallow you whole.

"Luna" is another reminder of Forse 1. Again, there's a strong sense of emergence. At just the right moment, I happened to come out from the sticky, muggy subway and into the chill of an early fall evening. The music reflected that perfectly. Odd abrupt ending.

Something about "Marcia" feels dated, nostalgic.  The record scratch and hiss in the background. That and the delay work very well together. This becomes mesmerizing. Words for the end: photon array.

"Menta" is one of the softest tracks on here. Freezing to death in your sleep. False warmth. The fuzz in the background adds an excellent texture.

The very beginning of "Salta" reminds me of Goldfrapp but then evolves into something that sounds like an early Doctor Who theme...which makes me want to hear Cortini cover the Doctor Who theme. The Who-ness actually takes me out of the flow of the album. The second half of this track is great, supplanting and then obliterating the first half, becoming regal, the rising of a pitch black sun. It's interesting to hear what the removal of a beat can do. The second half of this is my favorite part of Forse 2.

"Strada", which clocks in at just over three minutes, serves as a playful denouement to the massive climax of "Salta"; the perfect counterpoint to its world ending finale. Everything is mellow until all the knobs get turned up and the controls start to smoke and fizzle and explode, leaving us drifting, once again, in space.

Something that keep occurring to me in regards to Cortini's Forse, is how much it has the same quality of some of Coil's instrumental releases, namely, the quality to tell (or, at least, allude to) epic stories without containing a word.

While Forse 2 absolutely sounds like it's in the same galaxy as Forse 1, it's a far less inviting and habitable world; whether it's still and beautiful and sad, like a body found in the snow, or rough and frozen and heavy, like a thick slab of ice, it's always cold. Going along with that drop in temperature, I found Forse 2 to be less dynamic than Forse 1. There are glimpses of dynamism here, but not enough for me, although some might simply call it more subtle.

A review of Alessandro Cortini's "Sonno"

I identify Alessandro Cortini as the sonic equivalent of Neil Gaiman's Dream; his creations run the gamut from soothing and beautiful to amniotic and alien to frigid and terrifying to pure chaos.

To the uninitiated, he is the multi instrumentalist who has worked with Nine Inch Nails since the mid-2000's, both in the studio and on stage, as well as on Trent Reznor's recent side project, How to destroy angels. He's also been known as modwheelmood, blindoldfreak, SONOIO and, most recently, by his own name, specifically on a series of albums entitled Forse 1 and Forse 2, with the third installment coming later this year*.

So what the fuck does this sound like already?

The key difference between the first two Forse albums and Sonno is how dusty it sounds. Things feel blurred and frayed, rusty and even unsafe at times. Underneath the decay, the music ranges from sounding quite a bit like Forse, as with "Passatempo" (which is sincere and earnest, and replete with Cortini’s inherent warmth) and "Voltaggio Solitario", though the latter is, maybe, Forse heard through an infected ear, to Nine Inch Nails, namely "Dell’influenza", which could find a place on 2008's Ghosts I-IV and  "Rovine", which shares shadows with Broken's "Help Me I Am In Hell", its cold, electronic sibling.
Then, there's the sound of a lake with objects being dropped into it from great heights  ("Rinascimento"), an aural tour of the ocean's floor ("Variabile") and a whole lot more texture than one might be comfortable with.

To be fair, after "E Del Controllo", the longest and least dynamic track on Sonno, it was tough to get back into the album, but, luckily, that one is close to the end and doesn't do too much to interfere with the experience as a whole.

Sonno could serve as ambient background music, a sleep aid** or, if you were to sit with it and truly focus on what Cortini has made, something deeper and more intricate; something bright, broken, menacing, soft, and accepting, all at once.

This guy really knows what he's doing.

* All three composed, live, on a Buchla music easel.

** "Sonno" is Italian for "sleep".

End of the Month Music Bitchfest - August 2014

Nine Inch Nails

A scathing review, you say? Replete with blurry photos, you say?! Good lord! You've struck gold!!!!
Yes, I saw Nine Inch Nails TWO NIGHTS IN A ROW and was treated to the EXACT SAME SHOW BOTH NIGHTS. More about that in my pissy, unappreciative and yet completely unbiased review.
I have to say that writing for SoundBlab is, a least a little, reining in my more...fuckranty urges. For better or worse.

More bad news: I had (stupidly) assumed that, since the film was coming out October 3rd, that the soundtrack for Gone Girl would be out, at the very latest, October 7th, the Tuesday after the film's release date.
Ha.
Ha ha.
No.
Apparently, we're looking at a release date at the end of November. Which means TWO shitty things: first, more time for the hype machine to chew up and spit out the new Reznor/Ross music and, second, that there's not going to be a fucking blip about the uber deluxe Fragile rerelease this September, which marks the fifteenth anniversary of the album.
Time to buckle down for that 2019 release.
God fucking cunt damn it.

Beck

Go listen to Morning Phase some more.



Had a bit of a Bands-I-Got-Into-In-The-90's Music Concert Fest* this month. The first...well, you know all about that, but, seeing Tori Amos on the 13th at the Beacon made up for a lot of poisoned nostalgia. Here's the review (also replete with blurry photos). Nutshell: while she remains a fantastic force of nature to see live, I should have seen her the night before, as I was a lot more familiar with her set on the 12th.

Finally had a chance to sit down with Sonno, the most recent release from Alessandro Cortini, might have a review soon.

Did not have a chance to sit down with the new New Pronographers album, Brill Bruisers, this month, although I am very much looking forward to doing so.

And, finally, out of fucking nowhere, and through a series of odd marketing choices, one of which was a blimp, a new Aphex Twin album, Syro, the first in 13 years, has been announced. It's out September 23th.
If you don't know about how batshit insane Richard D. James (AKA Aphex Twin) is, you should treat yourself and do a little research. He's gloriously insane.
While I don't think it's possible for him to top his last album, Drukqs, I'm just glad to have him and his "thousands of unreleased albums" back on the scene...the fucking mad man.





* I figured when the title of the thing you're reading is "End of the Month Music Bitchfest", that you're expectations have already been sufficiently mitigated, so, yeah. I'm also not wearing pants as I type this.