In rotation for the past several days/weeks/months, this multi-view column reveals the latest sonic landscape from several talented musicians. Plenty of brittle, glitch, abstract, noisy, mechanical and bass-infused sounds with releases/tracks by Cathode Ray Tube, Echo Canyon, Golden Fangs, Jaime Irles (aka Known Rebel), Loden, Myoptik with The Horn, Sunao Inami, SWARMM, Topher, and various artists featuring Daniel Allen, Echowoman, Hamza, Monopolar, Rico Casazza, and Von Krup. Labels include Antipolis, Concrete Collage, Condition Human, Electr-ohm, Holotone, Panta Muzik, Ping-discs, Touched Music, and Untitled-1.
Cathode Ray Tube :: Songs For Swinging Sentinels EP (Condition Human)
Resident mechanized-electronic and modular sound sculpture Cathode Ray Tube (aka Chang Terhune) delivers his latest EP Songs For Swinging Sentinels as a soundtrack to our current isolated reality—a blinding 4-pack collection of crunchy electronics and distortion to blend with the indoor environment. Have a listen to “Rancho Deloroso”—its baffling assortment of soundtrack, glitch, broken beat, and tangled melodic elements spans through eight minutes of engulfing and hypnotic mood swings. On “Suspect B2A,” CRT launches into the 10+ minute range—its microscopic and noisey envelope oscillates between rusty breaks and eventually segues into dreamlike loops and DSP effects only to cascade into drifting bleep drones. This extended player exudes many bits and pieces, perhaps in the hundreds, that coalesce in some kind of synthesized ultra-world. Take “Ghosts In Freefall” as a prime example, its echoed beats and bass fall by the wayside as classic pseudo-techno spheres begin to take shape only to break down. The Subotnick-like and intertwined “Shadowy Banger” trickles down further 70s synthesizer pathways—its emotive push fueled by cathartic dribbling beats closes up the proceedings leaving us to wonder just how far CRT will go to keep us audibly satisfied.
Echo Canyon :: Skinner/Subside (Untitled-1)
Dimitris Patsaros (aka Echo Canyon) is an Athens-based producer and sound designer and with Skinner/Subside he fuses elements of disparate dub, bass, kosmiche, and grime in a succinct 9-track release that flows evenly from one track to the next. A sound sculptor that finds solace in unusual spaces, tracks like “Soap” and “Monolines” slither about with microscopic glitch details as “Pit” breaks open with heavy low-end vibration a dark-dub. “Last Thursday” expresses abstract sonic shapes and disjointed vocal shards in a syncopated flurry. Echo Canyon delivers from all sides of the musical spectrum and yet maintains form and function throughout each piece. Where dislocated electronics dance about (ref. “Faking Rush”) and atmospheric clicks’n cuts evolve and cycle on tracks like “Defrost,” Skinner/Subside persists as an exploratory avalanche. Deformed and reformed, broken and connected—here we see an artist with a focus on contrasting electronics that gel together as expressive audio manifests.
Golden Fangs :: Golden Fangs EP (Concrete Collage)
Somehow muddied between genres such as doom metal and shoegaze to noise and industrial sheets, Golden Fangs debuts on Concrete Collage with an explosive three-pack release showcasing its rage and fury full stop. “Wasteland” describes the mood perfectly—a dystopian foray into harsh breaks, beats, and massive distortion, the rhythm of this track alone is unrelenting and at a massive scale. The lively drum action on “Fangs” and its twitching glitch elements meld together like some kind of primordial electronic-rock soup—distressed guitars and heavy percussion take center stage as this track busts into thousands of pieces. The closing track (“Polar Beast”) comes to life. Initially screeching with tangled audible dirt and grit, it eventually expands into a wide-angled and worldly experiment as dizzying dub-infested noises creatively merge into a solid. Golden Fangs is a baffling and hard-edged release of epic proportion that offers turbulent electronic mayhem with a robust energy all its own. RIYL: Cursor Minor, Dead Fader, Meat Beat Manifesto, Scorn et al.
Jaime Irles (aka Known Rebel) :: Cardanova EP (Self Released)
Self described as “an eclectic mixture of downtempo, synthwave, ambient sounds with an industrial touch—reminiscent of past decades, evoking soundscapes and leading the listener into a journey through the depths of oneself“—and we wholeheartedly agree. With Cardanova, the title track alone should get you straight into its aquatic depths—synthwave in full swing, it pushes all the right buttons and pulses with an air of freedom and creative synergy. A few Stranger Things themes evolve within these three tracks, especially evidenced on “The Wasteland”—the mysterious mood, chugging beats, and old-school flavor brings back memories from the 80s as “Naval” runs through just over a minute of blissful ambient flutter, light keys gently create sine waves as far as the eye can see. A welcomed step away from Irles’ Known Rebel moniker, Cardanova offers contemplative electronic music with a nostalgic pulse.
Loden :: Paraiso (Self Released)
Downtrodden beats and foggy rhythms abound on the new Loden album titled Paraiso (Spanish for Paradise)—a dozen self released audio manifests. Each piece downbeat with a roughed hip-hop tinge that is both lively and consuming, “De Stenenbreker” kicks off with a “Do not experience emotions” sample that shimmies through middle Eastern motifs and maintains a moody backdrop of clinks, clangs, and disjointed flute sounds. Elsewhere you’ll find Loden muffling strange voices and manipulated instruments (fans of Teebs should take notice) as featured on “She Found Many Ruins.” The highlight takes shape on “We Left The Colony, Sans Regret” where gauzy shoegaze, drone, hip-hop, and nostalgic melodies run loose with a fragmented groove. On the closing piece “Next To Nothing, Paraiso,” Loden lets the ghosts roam freely—an experimental slice of life, tangled notes and peculiar vocal samples close everything up leaving the listener to wonder what exactly happened. Paraiso features kaleidoscope sounds, 70s-era kosmiche musik, and somehow triangulates with infectious worldly tentacles—especially on the large-scale opening (title) track that captures the essence of guitar abstraction as a mixture of entwined vocal samples blend with wide open drums.
Myoptik with The Horn :: Bananasplitz (Ping-discs / Touched Music)
Four tracks by The Horn and five by Myoptik, Bananasplitz is a split release between Ping-discs and Touched Music. The Horn’s contributions run the gamut for upbeat, 8-bit braindance rhythms, busted up rave-era acid breaks and all kinds of 90s era broken techno shapes. Myoptik takes on similar sonic hues from his counterpart, a mixture of experimental electronic mayhem somehow gelling together while hundreds of blips’n bleeps, and Aphex-like sparks ricochet from all sides (ref. “Megatron” for the best example). Rarely do any of the tracks on Bananasplitz take a second to exhale except on “AnnGin 2019 pt2 Fu-Cave” when Myoptik floats on a more minimal slant. The highlight, by far, takes shape on “Mouth So Much (The Horn Shouty Kenneth remix),” a Gescom’infested heavy hitting click-hop and bass jolt breaks apart with microscopic audio shuffling and vocal distortions flickering and falling apart—what a mind-boggling track in and of itself and worth the price of admission alone. As a whole, Bananasplitz is a congested electronic release that marries two like-minded musicians following a parallel path that compliment each other.
Sunao Inami :: 2018—2019 (Electr-ohm)
It is quite an achievement for Kobe, Japan-based Sunao Inami and his latest 8-pack albums he’s just released on on his own Electr-ohm imprint including: 0421-0516_2019, 0518-0607_2019, 0221-0321_2019, 1229_2018-0116_2019, 0324-0415_2019, 0611-0702_2019, 0118-0216_2019, and 0703-0811_2019. It is also a huge undertaking to digest these recordings in one fell swoop and almost impossible to give it justice via words. Launching a storm of extreme and minimal sound fractures this side of the Milky Way, each release stands on its own as a form of mechanical drone layers. As we consumed Albums 1-6 in 2019, which featured “distorted bass to rugged beats drenched in cybernetic blips and bleeps,” Inami continues to rattle the ears with a dizzying array of audible debris. From moody/ambient sound-scraping filled with low-pressure swells to turbulent and drifting noise, these albums (spanning from 2018 to 2019) dip into exploratory sound fields. Sometimes explosive and all-consuming, Sunao Inami knows his machines inside and out—allowing the resulting tunes to foster new electrical strands that bend, contort, and corrode. Odd beat patterns emerge and submerge themselves periodically—just enough to form isolated industrial sheets only to dissolve into microscopic elements we never realized were present. Perhaps one of the finest purveyors of experimental (leftfield) electronics from the past several decades, Inami’s experience in the field of analog and digital synthesis is ever-present as he continues to project the Electr-ohm label into deeper waters that very few can emulate so succinctly.
SWARMM :: EXTRACT / TRANSFORM / LOAD EP (Holotone)
The young and talented A/V artist SWARMM (aka Liam Noonan) pulls together a 4-track EP with the title stemming from computer language whereby extract, transform, load (ETL) is known as “the general procedure of copying data from one or more sources into a destination system…“—besides that, SWARMM’s latest is an intricate set of electronic and instrumental data points. The disjointed yet somehow captivating opening track “Death Of A Generation / Birth Of Reform,” breaks through infinite clicks’n cuts swelling as “Exhale” distracts the ears with micro-glitch fissures and evolved twists as abstract DSP scatter about. “Jitter” tangles itself in a maze of scorched ambient deconstruction—the sonic platform simply exploding carefully as it untangles. The dark echoes of “Angular Mass” expand and contract with industrial clangs and explosive rhythmic juggling. In all, ETL channels a whole other exploratory dimension, one that is both visceral and surreal at the same time. Mind altering, to say the least—fractal electronics with a definitive glitch pulse. Available on May 8, 2020.
Topher :: 3 Spontaneous Combustions 1997-99 EP (Antipolis)
Topher (aka Christopher Mathieu) provides a flashback to the past of what he calls “unreleased jams from the 90s“)—a raw and analog-infused three-pack of downtempo electronics spanning almost 40 minutes. Sliced, diced, and broken up into incremental sound structures, tracks like the 10+ minute “Neveralways (Parts I & II)” run through slow-motion electro layers—its shuffling beats slither about like a lost Phoenecia artifact as the tail end dips into fractured early-era IDM manifests. The hypnotic “Erased From Existence” runs through creeping dark-dub drums and loosened piano keys creating a cavernous and laidback trip. “Ambush,” perhaps the most upbeat of the trio, embarks on yesteryear IDM with a tinge of Detroit-inspired melodies bringing back a nostalgic glimpse into where the genre would eventually take us. 3 Spontaneous Combustions 1997-99, an aptly titled EP, generates just enough momentum to keep our ears glued to the speakers with its tangled downbeat groove.
V/A :: Vantage Point V1 (Panta Muzik)
Panta Muzik’s mission includes the belief that “music, dance, painting and any artistic and creative activity are always a healing process and a place for collaboration and coming together.” We are firmly onboard with that focus and Vantage Point V1 features a half-dozen tracks of more upbeat electronics for the dance floor. Where we’ve come to embrace Rico Casazza as full-throttle electro, here he presents “Mistico Dub”—a dubby techno slice of life whereas Monopolar provides curious instrumental drums working out at full force on “The Cost Of Living.” Hamza’s “Khatta” is pure minimal techno dub from a vacant Berlin warehouse as Echowoman’s “Give it back” offers synthesizer echos bouncing off rhythmic blips and bleeps. Vantage Point V1 maneuvers into the forefront of pseudo-techno spheres—Daniel Allen presents “Stacking Haworthia,” a robotic electro track that sounds fresh from its warmed-up modular machinery circa mid-90s. Von Kruo’s “Mystery Vibes” comes across as a lost Mouse On Mars sonic artifact of delicate plinks and plucks—its bubbling electronics and disjointed techno slivers highlighted by distant jazz moments peppered throughout. A fresh release that presents a myriad of breaks, beats, dub-techno, and minimal house fissures to keep us moving forward in these strange times.
