From braindance to bodypop, this album carves its own colorful and bumpy melodic pathway.
Lee Norris continues to focus efforts on his music, the Metamatics nameplate is one that spans almost 20-years, believe it or not. With the return (again?) of Neo Ouija, the label that brought us names like Bauri, Penfold Plum, Geiom, Solenoid, Quinoline Yellow, Infant, Kettel, and so many more, it’s refreshing to hear Bodypop. Compliant with all things abstract, this album spans through a splendid sonic plateau. Broken electrical bits, bobs and bleeps frolic with electro, bass, acid and staccato rhythms. Take the title track, which could very well define its own genre-name, and you soon realize that Metamatics hasn’t lost his touch.
I finally had a good listen to Bodypop during a 6-hour drive back from Arizona’s Grand Canyon to Southern California (alongside Carbinax’s latest The Picture, Not The Pixels—a sweet combination back to back) and it’s easy to say that each piece contains its own magnetic beauty and flow. “Moor Mist” is chock full of deconstructed bass, subtle melodic jabs, squiggles and twitches. And it’s these focused, upbeat musical bubbles that keep this album fresh from start to end. The core of electronic music, the sway of IDM and its subsidiaries, are revealed on Bodypop. A grip of modular cables dangle from large synthesizers—these are the sounds of yesterday, now, and tomorrow. Classic upon release, tracks like “Midge Image” embark on mid-90s broken electro, re-tooled and reconfigured with a focus on dark gritty slices. “Clear The Floor” runs parallel with its beeps pulsing around old-school breaks. The question is, did Mr. Norris bump into 90s-era Aphex Twin during the creation of “Cornish Pasty”? A fast-paced and short-running acid-glitch-bird-chirping crunch that veers back and forth like a runoff groove gone mad.
Rounded out with mixes by Ambidextrous, The Shape and Dokun, Bodypop lures the listener into its fragmented beat-drenched electronic opus. Melody and rhythm formed and deformed via synthesizer bliss, Metamatics affirms once again that he’s able to discover and display a myriad of powerful, movement-based and beat-infested sounds with ease. Welcome back Neo Ouija, please stay a while!
From braindance to bodypop, this album carves its own colorful and bumpy melodic pathway.
Bodypop is available on Neo Ouija.
