Architect :: I Went Out Shopping To Get Some Noise (Hymen, CD)

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Daniel Myer is a busy lad, putting out a broad range of electronic material under
a number of aliases, though he is probably best known for his work in his
post-industrial future-pop inflected guise of Haujobb. One of his secrets has
been Galactic Supermarket, the previous record released in his Architect guise.
Galactic Supermarket was a streamlined fusion of ambience and beats, a slick
glittering construct that sailed silently between the stars. Myer returns to
Architect for I Went Out Shopping To Get Some Noise and, while he brings the echo
of solar flares and space wind back with him, he’s also found a string quartet
and a forgotten cache of recorded voices.

Architect may be the realm of experimentation, the space where Myer dabbles with
strange fusions and odd conglomerations. “Anger Management” works the space
anthems, the sampled voices and the string quartets into a highly polished
downtempo piece. In the future when anger will be managed through chemical
reconfiguration and genetic alteration, this track will be the song inserted into
your brain on a perpetual loop as a reward for good behavior. “Belgian
Connection” stutters and hiccups with noise artifacts and glitches in the digital
signal, but the core aesthetic remains future-glow downtempo as if the house band
in the cyber-club of the 22nd century was a rhythm section of bruised machinery
percolating retro-analog sounds as backup for an antique wood-grained radio
cabinet which is still transmitting signals from the late 20th century.

“People forget that the brain is the biggest erogenous zone,” a voice intones in
“ICL Feelings,” interrupting the shuffling, clattering dance floor breakdown that
Myer has spun the record up to. This is machine sex music pumped directly into
the eXistenZ input drilled into the base of your spine. “Colorado 6AM” kicks up
dust on the empty highway as our vehicle flees before the spreading lambent glow
of the sunrise behind us. Nothing out here in the high desert but the keening
whistle of the desert wind, the repetitive whap-whap doppler sound of road
markers streaming by, and the sub-sonic pop-pop of the last meteor storm dappling
the fading blackness of sky’s cupola.

“Unlike” is the burr of noise and the whispered voices of a schizophrenic’s
nocturnal chatter disturbing a melancholic string quartet. Myer layers unlikely
elements together, whipping a line of Autechre-style machine crunching across a
solitary piano melody (furthering, you know, the melancholia first introduced by
the string section), while sustaining the impression that we’re eavesdropping on
an orchestral recital, sitting in the back row next to the geriatrics who can’t
keep their comments to themselves and a poorly maintained heating unit that is
wheezing and leaking water on the floor. “Dievorce” stretches my favorite Tyler
Durden speech from Fight Club across a bed of light-fingered beats and a hint of
Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata,” further dovetailing disparate elements in an
amalgamation which lend credence to the argument that — in the right proportions
— the sum is greater than the parts.

I Went Out Shopping To Get Some Noise makes me put the words futuristic, downtempo and drum ‘n’ bass in the same sentence with absolute no shame. While some of Myer’s other projects haven’t held my attention, his work as Architect continues to captivate, fascinating me as to how he manages to combine all of the oddly-shaped musical leitmotifs and genres into an engrossing cohesion. I want to go shopping with Myer, just to see what he puts in his cart.

I Went Out Shopping To Get Some Noise is out now on Hymen Records.

Hymen Website

Architect Website