Who knew machines could make such beautiful music? Even Pinback’s rarities and b-sides, including the ones made between 1998 and 2001, collected here, have a crystalline grace to them. The fact that they were all created in garages and bedrooms is a finer validation of the internet age than anything else. Laptop-pop nuggets abound here, from the airy harmonies (and sampled kettle whistle) of “Anti-Hu” to Zach Smith’s and Rob Crow’s dexterous finger work on the online-only “Messenger.” Like watching spider webs glitter in a synthetic sun.
Kid Koala Your Mom’s Favorite DJ
Humor is everything, as Kid Koala has proven in the past. But so is riffage, something Your Mom’s Favorite DJ possesses in abundance compared to its funnier predecessors. The result? A sizzling jam, especially on the three smoking crunchers from his new Seattle project Slew (“Test 1,” “Test 2,” and “Test 3”), which drop fiery blues-hop like sonic hammers. Meanwhile, the mournful piano of “Things’ll Be Good Again” keeps the CD‘s vibe airy and seamless, just the way true-school hip-hop likes it. One of the baddest releases of the year so far.
Various DJ Krush Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best
The most recognizable name in Japanese turntablism is back, this time bearing not strange, new fruit but skewed, recombinant soundscapes from a storied career almost two decades deep. And though a remix comp does not a new experiment make, you can cut Krush some slack: Between mixtapes, remixes, and originals, his stream of productions outdistances that of similarly revered turntablists. The structures of atmospheric classics like “Duality,” “Bypath,” and “Kemuri” remain mostly untouched, save for splashes of noise, digital and otherwise. Krush’s intervention is more noticeable on Disc Two, where amped updates of “Only the Strong Survive,” “Meiso,” and “Vision of Art” seriously deviate from the stripped-down sound of their precedents. Some might wish that he threw the fuller flourishes of Stepping Stones onto a new record, but the rest should find this revisionist history a worthwhile introduction to one of the legends of the game.
The Whitest Boy Alive Dreams
Imagine sensitive indie rock reduced to steady drum pulses and lonely guitar chords, and you have the beginnings of The Whitest Boy Alive. Frontman Erlend Øye (Kings of Convenience) doesn’t waste a breath, casually muttering pained declarations-like “Patience is just another word for getting old”-as if the only audience he’s playing to is the man in the mirror. This is a masterful example of the kind of moving but pensive music that accompanies breakups in teen movies. If that isn’t a dig in your book, pick up this album.
The Black Neon Arts & Crafts
English label Memphis Industries has built a reputation for cavity-causing pop, be it the spazzed-out, sample-heavy cheerleading of The Go! Team or the matching skirts and girl-group sounds of The Pipettes. The Black Neon, the project of ‘stache-rocking solo artist Steve Webster, hits a chronological midpoint between its labelmates, aping aspects of the droning, psychedelic music of the ‘70s and ‘80s-like a jam session between Neu! and Brian Wilson. Webster builds repetitive, shimmering lines out of science filmstrip-style synths while harmonies of a more psychedelic persuasion creep throughout the tightly constructed album.
Georgia Anne Muldrow Olesi: Fragments of an Earth
Coming from a family of free-jazz musicians, the daughter of a ‘60s torch singer, Georgia Anne Muldrow starts out well left-of-center before you hear her rich, neo-soul-style vocals. While there’s a certain amount of astral traveling on her debut LP Olesi, the writer/Singer/musician grounds her ‘60s-style spiritual outpourings with modern-day boom-bap. The best moments are when this songbird comes down to Earth and emotes. The cathartic post-Katrina dirge “New Orleans” stings with pain and anger, while “Patience,” a politics-imbued meditation on losing one‘s way, could be the mournful follow-up.
Various Otto Von Schirach: Armpit Buffet
It’s doubtful there’s a genre more solipsistic and incestuous than IDM. At least this CD acknowledges it’s a “tribute” to Miami tone masticator Otto Von Schirach. And by “tribute” they mean an agitated compilation rinsed in his chunky regurgitant detergent. Contributors include Phoenecia, Venetian Snares, Hearts of Darkness, Soft Pink Truth, Quintron, Doormouse, Richard Devine, Jamie Lidell, Dino Felipe, and Secret Chiefs 3. Frequencies fist blurting sphincter fissures, ear-canal ejaculate, and then groan from their distended anarchitecture, with these breakcore, electro, 8-bit, and “file under Other” interpretations making mince meat from tossed salad.
Various Diamanten und Raketen
This compilation of bristly beats and constricting suspense translates as “Diamonds and Rockets,” which might imply that these (mostly) previously released “post-techno” Teutonic jack trax are gleaming, unblemished bangers. And yet the most compelling moments are the tracks’ meticulous flaws. The pockmarked partitions of Phage & Daniel Dreier’s “Bees Wax,” the braided and abraded blurts of Johannes Heil’s “Freaks R Us,” the stalking burbles of Raudive’s “Turn It Off”-these are the style’s memorable facets. Avus, 2 Dollar Egg, Alter Ego, and more also deliver pneumatic deep tech and condensed tension. How ’bout Diamond-Etched Grooves and Ruckus?
Lindstrøm It’s a Feedelity Affair
These 11 compositions, by the Oslo-based Hans-Peter Lindstrøm, were originally released on vinyl through his own label, but they now share a home with motorik darts and corporeal sequencing on Smalltown Supersound. While there are obvious Giorgio Moroder arpeggio marauders (“There’s a Drink in My Bedroom” and “I Need a Hot Lady”) there’s also zonked Floydian guitar on “Cane It for the Original Whities” and an Ibiza breeze on “Another Station,” plus the incontrovertibly transportive “I Feel Space.” Lindstrøm’s astro-disco resides in a pan-temporal orbit between Italo, Balearic, kosmiche, Krautrock, prog, and fusion folk.
Clark Body Riddle
Body Riddle doesn’t feature as much synthetic critter twitter as Chris Clark’s 2001 debut, nor does it sound as strangulated as some of that album’s more straitjacketed and jacking tracks. Then again, Body Riddle doesn’t struggle within itself nearly as much as Clark’s 2003 sophomore ambient meandering. What before sounded forced now swings refined. “Herr Bar,” “Frau Wav,” “Ted,” “Vengeance Drools,” “Night Knuckles”-these highlights recall everything from fuzz-filter funk to the spiny mecho-organic convulsions of Richard D. James.
