From Tom Millar Sent Mon, Jun 21st 1999, 21:30
From Tom Millar Sent Mon, Jun 21st 1999, 21:30
Heap big box o' stuff arrived from FE. V/A: Ischemic Folks Schematic Reminds me of the Plug R+D comp, but faster and more insistent. I can see where the sonic building blocks might be similar to Autechre but as a whole I find the message in most of this stuff to be removed by orders of magnitude- Autechre is about living in a burned-out industrial city with clouds overhead, this is about suburban sprawl in places where no two people are the same color and the sun lets up only long enough for people to trade illegal firearms and Schedule I substances. To tell the truth, I hate Miami and Atlanta with a passion. But the comp's good. Makes me think of all those gigantic exit roads hundreds of feet in the air. Grease trunk of black sports coupe, add sampler, laptop and subwoofer. Garnish with slapback and/or room reverb to taste. Serves twelve. Potuznik: Concorde Cheap CD CHEAP FIVE Hi, we're the Cheap Records posse and we're completely off our collective postmodern rocker. The album art is a panorama in several panels; on the back of each panel is a portion of information regarding the production of the various tracks. Reductionism. The CD is a collection of works by Gerhard Potuznik performed or arranged, rather, by other people with synths and related illnesses. The raster screen reveals a portion of the password, decode the secret, light up a smoke. We have put our heads very far up into our own assholes to give you this very special record resulting in the appearance of a very annoying fellow doing some kind of book-on-tape voice-over between the musical tracks, no two of which are at all alike. The tracks are good. The packaging is pretentious. We are Cheap. Nobukazu Takemura: Scope Thrill Jockey THRILL 068 NOBEKAZU TAKEMURA MAKES A RECORD -a play in fifteen minutes Dramatis Personae: NOBUKAZU TAKEMURA, a long-haired Japanese ambient musician BILL, this dude I just made up <Nobukazu's studio in Japan.> Bill: Hey, I think you left the phone off the hook. NT: I'm making an album. Bill: Oh. Hey, is that a fax machine? NT: No. That's my sampler. Bill: It sounds like a fax machine. If fax machines could vomit. NT: Not listening to you...go away... Bill: So what's this song about? Constipated robots? NT: Stop making fun of my dog. Bill: I asked you what the song was about. NT: I call it "On A Balloon." Bill: You should call it Modem vs. Orchestra. NT: Literalist. (pause) Bill: Help. I've been hypnotized. I can't stop paying rapt attention to this music. NT: (evil mastermind style) Ha Ha Ha Haa. <FIN> The Martian: LBH-6251876 Red Planet RP10 Detroit Detroit Detroit I live in Detroit Detroit Detroit BumpBumpBumpBump Zawhoosh Detroit Detroit Detroit aaaaahh. Nothing exceptional, but smooth 313 action everywhere. Some tracks kind of wallow in been-there-done-that house-land but most are really well done. Heavier motown/soul influence than even most Detroit techno nowadays, kind of a retro-fresh flava in ya sci-fi third wave mojo ear. Beepity doo, I'm living in the future Detroit Detroit Detroit aaaaahh. And of course the best for last... MAT-101: Goodbye Mum Balance 002CD Strangely enough, even though techno and electronic music is so concerned with innovation and forward-thinking sound architecture, there are more than a few "roots" techno albums out there. I'm thinking Elektroids' tribute to Kraftwerk, Boards of Canada's 70s filmstrip sound, folks like Bola who never left 1993, Pharma records as a whole, and so forth. Here MAT-101 takes us back to where it all started for a lot of us- 80's synthpop and 8-bit videogames. Every tune on this album is a trip back to the halcyon days of my youth when I first discovered those wonderful Oberheim sawtooth leads on the radio and my ADD-addled mind was suddenly soothed. Love at first sound. Atarified robots grace the cover, as well as leading you through the album's sonic tour of the previous decade with occasional commodore non sequiturs. This CD is absolutely wonderful- better than an imitation of all those old Mega Man themes and synthpop anthems. Tight bass and great Galaxian licks sprinkled throughout. Truly one of my favorite finds of this year. Buy now, wherever you can find it. More coming soon- special listmember edition featuring Dated, Colongib, and Kumquat. Tom