From Adam J Weitzman Sent Thu, Aug 6th 1998, 23:28
From Adam J Weitzman Sent Thu, Aug 6th 1998, 23:28
After purchasing a number of a particular label's products, you often get the feeling that you kinda know what the next one is gonna sound like before you put it in. But once in a while, the label will throw an awesome curveball your way, and you can only admire it as you head back to the dugout on a called strike three. In this case, Digital Hardcore Recordings is the label, and Carl Crack's "Black Ark" is the curveball. This is what it might sound like if you put Alec Empire, Mick Harris, Mika Vainio and Markus Popp in the same room. There's plenty of layers of various off-center loops, heavy dub-ified grooves, vocal samples, and ear-splitting noise, enough to turn the most hardy listener into a whimpering mass of pulp. It crashes through your eardrums, then turns on a dime and does it again from a different and entirely unexpected direction. It's pretty noisy and clangy at the beginning, and gets more dubby and experimental as it goes on. The various tracks start to get really intense grooves on, and then suddenly tear themselves down and rebuild in a different configuration. It's a fairly lo-fi recording (if you're heard Alec Empire's _Low_On_Ice_ you kinda know what I mean), but that doesn't detract from it much. This is a very different recording from anything I've heard on DHR before, and I think it's excellent. Mr. Crack has put together a massive jumble of rhythms and sounds that sometimes coalesce, sometimes contradict, but always engage and pique interest. Nine out of ten. Carl Crack Black Ark Digital Hardcore Recordings (Limited Series) DHR LTD 005 21 tracks, total time 73:33 1. If You Mess With Me! 2. Gangsta 3. KR-6200 4. Headcase 5. Tin Tin 6. Indaba 7. Fu Man Chu 8. What=s Going On? 9. Khoi-San 10. Darling 11. Mein Geist Ist Dein Geist 12. Dogon 13. Sonnenfreunde 14. Herbstlaub 15. Shit 16. Times Like These 17. Fucking Day 18. Drunken Style 19. Plasma 20. Radio Tschernobyl 21. Durban Poison -- Adam J Weitzman NewsEdge Corporation Welcome to my signature. http://www.newsedge.com Please wipe your feet. http://www.newspage.com