Issue 3
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Category: Music CROSSFADE GRIMOIRE Music reviews and news with an attitude problem. Issue 3 Greetings everyone from Connecticut, where the weather has a personality disorder and the housing costs are unjustified. It has been over a month since the last issue, so we have a lot to cover. For all of you who read the last one, my national debut at the Justice Planetarium went very well and was recorded by Radio Kansas, the local NPR affiliate. No word yet on when it will air. The cuts frrom the live CD “Anthem to the Stars” will be on a music page soon, probably about the same time “Crossfade” goes to the Web. We will still run bulletins and updates on Myspace, but the ‘zine will make the jump from Space to the Web a little later this spring. I had no idea that the reviews would be so popular (and actually read by people). This should make it a little easier and should expose all the artists involved to the world at large, (i.e. those people who have Facebook…) (Ed. note: due to time constraints and general laziness, the reviews of brkr and Neutronix will be in a special 3.1 edition of CG. I’m the only lunatic in the office, and sometimes it’s…blah blah whine whine..I’m sure you get the picture. It’ll be out in a couple of days- SM)
Top 10 tracks 1. Deadlights- VS23 2. Coulrphobia- Rambozo 3. Broken- Trip Addict (full length digital release) 4, Come On- The Panderers 5. Shane- The Panderers 6. Affect- Product 6 7. Think Tank- Rambozo 8. Gyrus- BAN (VS23 remix) [Gyrus/VS23] 9. Aviso- VS23 10. Flesh- Product 6
Albums: Trip Addict- Broken [4.75] Standout tracks: “Hit the Piano”, “Relax”, “Detail”, “Rockin’” What began as an almost disastrous file transfer that sent my poor E-Machine squealing and mewling like an emo kid robbed of his older sister’s hand-me-downs resulted in one of the best things to happen to my computer..EVER. Trip’s 2008 digital release, Broken, is a near-classic document of where drum’n'bass and its myriad offshoots are heading. Aside from two rather tedious hip-hop tracks, the album is uniformly excellent. “Detail” kicks off the proceedings with lightning breaks, “oops-my-mobile-is-dying” electronics and great production. After the too-long “FunkyMaaaaaaaaaan” (good beat, just not much happening), the release fires off the first of 2 all-time classics: “Hit the Piano.” Layers upon layers of modal and, later, bitonal piano arpeggios and riffs cascade off of each other, counterpointing the crack rhythm track. Unlike a lot of multi-sequenced tracks, “Piano” builds to an almost symphonic peak, always inventing and never sacrificing vision for cred. Truly remarkable! Another hip-hop track, “KanyeStyle” follows: again, not bad, but pales in comparison to the other tracks on the disc. “Ready for War” features eclectic drum kit and synth with a moderately kicking hardstyle bassynth lead. The production, however, is thin and uneven, and the absence of a solid floor kick leaves the track not actually ready for war. All is forgiven, though. “Relax” takes over, and over the course of 9 minutes and change, evolves from funky get-up style beats to a track that recalls classic electronica. Think The Orb or some of Yello’s more atmospheric chillouts set to modern rhythmic pulse. “Relax”, in my humble opinion, ranks with “Higher State of Consciousness” and God Within’s “Raincry” as ultimate chill and pill music. The two mixes featured on the album (DJ Browsa’s VIP mix of “HmInnit” and the Star Wars remix) are typical of the great and the merely good spectrum of remixing. The DJ Browsa mix takes the song, already a head-pounder, and takes it to a new level, not unlike the runaway-locomotive mixes of Paperboy2000 in the mid 90’s, which were relentless. The “Star Wars” remix, while being a good reworking of that old warhorse’s themes and feels, just doesn’t hold up the rest of the album’s shotgun brilliance. Still worth a listen though. (Ed. Note: The last track of this amazing release was damaged as my whiny Commodore 64 said “screw this” and shut down. Apologies to Trip and everyone else.) That being said, the other two tracks, “Rockin’” and the colorfully-titled “Shadow Can Suck My Balls” close what my PC considers the album. “Rockin” is a classic track chockful of hyperweird drum work and some of the most brutal synth modulations I have heard in a long while. Imagine a Moog or a 303 completely tweaked on stackers, riding on an amphetamine (or latte, if you prefer..some do) rhythm section. Great track! As for the other, well..if the title is meant to one-up DJ Shadow, the track doesnt deliver the goods. While the track has inventive lead work and is spare in the aged trip-hop tradition, the song sounds more like a remix of the 1998 PlayStation game, “Tales of Destiny”, than anything from “The Private Press.” Am I full of it? You decide… Album rating: 4.75 out of 6 points. Tracks:
Product 6 Product 6 comes from the apparently massive Chicago d’n'b/darktronica scene, but with something completely different..and I mean, completely. “Affect” is best described as drum’n'jungle but with a heavy experimental (read: Eno) edge. Spacy samples, punch-drunk rhythms, and a warped bass mark this somewhere between hardstyle and acid jungle. The mix is fantastic. [4.5] “Spacegun” features spacy, psychotic darktronica that breaks into a truly deranged love child hybrid of hard techno and drum’n'bass. It’s hard to describe these tracks and omit 20th century experimentalists like John Cage, Brian Eno, and Karlheinz Stockhausen, though, because the editing here and what follows is almost more electro-experimentalism than electronica. Compeletely out there! [4.0] FUKCIA- (bet you can’t guess what this is about..) The track is filled with nanosecond rhythm cuts, farty bleeps and blaps, and acid nightmare samples via darktronica rifs. Suddenly, the whole thing breaks into an almost normal rhythm workout, even if the mix still sounds like it has Tourette’s. [4.25] Dubya- Ahh..The Resident of the Oval Orifice finally has his own song. Here’s to hoping he won’t have to say the name, lest he get it wrong. Throwing conventional structures to the wind, this freak-soup collage of noise, samples and synths do battle with a rhythm that sounds like it was lifted from a Can or a Faust album. Bush’s soundbite is annhilated, phased, split, pureed, and through the sample-mayhem, the Chief sounds, well…eloquent. Not a dance track or indeed, even a normal one, but very intriguing. [4.0) Fundthemental- The most oultandishly weird of all the tracks, "Mental" is more montage than anything. While there is a good syncopated pulse and wicked darktronica, the soundbites and the editing make this one fucking weird experience. [4.0] Flesh- For those of you who are old and stinky like me, take your Geritol and remember the early days of the landmark group, the Art of Noise. Now imagine if they or Throbbing Gristle had evolved today instead of in 1982 and 1977, respectively. Throw in a healthy dose of the timeless Eno classic “Another Green World”, and you have this: a promising and potentially jaw-dropping new format. [4.25] Part two will feature releases by the UK’s Rambozo, Philadelphia’s VS23, and two songs by the Panderers, a great US band on the verge. (also..Live listings and some other useless junk..)
end 3.0 CG |
I’m glad you liked “Deadlights” so much. I never expected a #1 track in your zine so early.