From Arthur B. Purvis Sent Sun, Mar 7th 1999, 20:56
From Arthur B. Purvis Sent Sun, Mar 7th 1999, 20:56
All these reviews and more are available at
http://www.princeton.edu/~abpurvis/
Pan Sonic - A (Mute)
7/10
If you haven't heard Pan(a)sonic yet, here's the lowdown: electronic music
constructed from the bare essentials - sine waves, bass pulses, static,
clicks, the noise your fridge makes, etc. This record way well be their
best yet, combining the pure sound approach of Vakio with the fragile
techno of Mika Vainio's 0 side project in a way that is totally
mesmerizing... rarely has such an utterly enveloping record been made with
such simple sounds. It's very clinical (as all Panasonic is), but manages
a more textured, more sinister tone not heard before, and there are even
some tracks that give up the machine funk ("johto 2"). But this album
really shouldn't be broken down into tracks, as it is best experience from
beginning to end, in all it's clear, clean, precise beauty. Excellent.
Various Artists - Out of Perspective (Soup)
6/10
Don't know much of anything about this label, but I like what I hear - the
artists have taken many standard forms of western dance music (hiphop,
techno, jungle) and given them a decidedly new twist. All the tracks have
a ton of things going on, with sounds culled from as disparate sources as
cello and digital noise fuckery, sometimes in the same track. Very fresh
sounding, and dare I say it, experimental... one last note: you can buy
this for $1.99 new - how punk rock is that?
Suzukiski - Tunnels: rising and falling synthesized noise over a
lightly thumping beat. Nice.
Montage - Expressa: nondescript jazzy dnb... not a fan of that type of
thing, but it's not bad.
Riow Arai - Wandering: wow... a combination of cd skips, crazed drum
samples (sort of junglish) and other noises into a storming jungle tune.
Taichi - The Ultimate Preference: see the Montage track.
Computer Soup - Untitled(edit): noise and quiet piano. short and to
the point.
Cappablack - Niji's Hierograffiti: Bangin hiphop beats and a melody
comprised of a collage of numerous small samples of different sounds...
very impressive.
Kitta - Communication Network: Hiphop based around the always
wonderful sound of a standup bass. Nice.
Nagi - Hoshizukiyo: Wierd but way too cheesy.
Suzukiski - Throwback: Starts with incredibly fast acoustic guitar
picking married to jungle beats and morphs its way into a real nice fast
paced jungle tune.
Riow Arai - So Back!!!: manic jungle, great.
Montage - Eternal Beatz(pulse phase mix): hard edged jungle with a bit
too much cheese.
Computer Soup - Beijing 251 (edit): More digital noise, some jazzy
horns. Not terrible.
Kitta - What About?!!!??! (poetry mix): A sort of Scornish slowed down
dark hiphop tune... great.
Cappablack - The Crossing: Excellent mix of cello and record
scratching over extremely catchy hiphop.
DJ Krush/Toshinori Kondo - Ki-Oku (Instinct)
4/10
An interesting experiment that should have been phenomenal but is instead
merely OK - DJ Krush, producer of some of my favorite hiphop records,
teams up with this here Kondo feller, a man who apparently likes his
trumpet and his effects boxes and (very) free music (the press release
says he's played with Derek Bailey and John Zorn, just to name a
couple)... For whatever reason, instead of making a completely mad hiphop
record, these boys decided to make an extremely laidback chillout type of
record that has neither the wacky funk of Krush's "Turntablized" nor the
rock solid grooves of his "Milight" nor much experimentalism beyond a
whole lot of echo/reverb on the trumpet... the grooves are decent
(sometimes), the trumpet playing veers dangerously close to pure jazz wank
(and not in a good way at all), the sounds are all very smooooooothed out
and unoffensive with very little "oomph" behind the bass or drums, and
then all this gets smeared around in a dubby wash of effects that's pretty
cool but can't save the uninspired music. Two of the songs are very reggae
influenced, but only one (the "cover" of Bob Marley's "Sun is Shining")
does anything interesting along those lines... Perhaps I'm being
overcritical, but it just isn't as good as I think these guys are
capable of, even for this type of record.
SONAR - Overdose Simulation (COP)
7.5/10
Bliss found in a simple beat and brutally harsh sounds - just unrelenting
walls of power noise. I think I'm in love - distortion forever!
This is the kind of music trucks have sex to. Guess I must be a truck (or
at least a transformer). One of the best pieces of European power noise
I've heard, totally over the top. One last note: there are actually two
records here - one if you play it at normal volume, one if you play it so
loud it hurts. Guess which is better?
PS SONAR = Dirk Ivens (dive) and Patrick Stevens (Hypnoskull, Sona Eact,
etc etc). Licensed from Daft records (Dirk's label).
Pole - CD1 (Matador)
6/10
Deep, dub inspired basslines anchor washes of heavily reverbed, murky
synths. Percussion comes from the sound of a record popping and skipping,
meticulously organized into tight rhythms; the "surface noise" of an old
LP is everpresent. Aquatic, spacy, very sentimental at times, almost
danceable at others, usually gorgeous. Like the Chain Reaction/Basic
Channel records Stefan Betke (Pole) helped engineer but another giant step
away from the dancefloor and into the depths - way out, way good (if a bit
spotty). "Modul" is one of the most beautiful things I've heard in recent
times.
Squarepusher - Budakhan Mindphone
3/10
Apparently this is Tom J's new direction, and it seems to involve lots of
Jaco Pastorius (I'm beginning to wonder how many times this guy has
appeared on my page) style wanking with some poor semblance of 70s funk, a
drum machine that's gotten off the crack, and some misguided attempts at
experimental music (the tide and gong acid; the first builds and ebbs in
an uncompelling way, and the latter involves gamelan music that isn't too
interesting). The only redeeming track is a reasonably ok storming drum
and bass tune right before the end that's really not more than pretty
cool. Oh well. If found "feed me wierd things" wore out pretty quickly,
but this never even made an impact.
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the humble abbott arthur purvis set his hand hereto