Bong-Ra (a.k.a. Jason Kohnen) has been stunningly prolific in the last four years, and it’s heartening for the breakcore sound that his musical star is still in ascent. Sublight, which has a knack for getting great full-lengths from the scene’s best artists, has released Soldaat van Oranje, markedly more sonically diverse fare than Bong-Ra’s last album on Ad Noiseam. Although his post-rave buzz-synths still lace the album, the amens don’t kick in until track six; and while the vibe is definitely trademark-heavy, it’s now dark with depth, crackling around industrial dancehall and hip-hop as well as manic jungle. He definitely hasn’t lost his Bikini Bandits party side, but the bell tones and the odd, grinding stutter-step of “Laatste Oordeel,” Soldaat‘s closer, point him in yet another direction, a teaser for his forthcoming Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble project.
Kaito Hundred Million Light Years
Japanese artists Tomita and Yellow Magic Orchestra established a futurist Eastern tradition of electronic dream music in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Tokyo-based Hiroshi Watanabe (a.k.a. Kaito) updates his countrymen’s blueprint and further explores gorgeous ambient techno that evokes early European trance pioneers Sven Vath or Jam & Spoon. This album, Watanabe’s third, sparkles like a still pond at dawn with gentle aquamarine synth ripples and slow-mo string plucking providing an airy glow. But this isn’t merely yoga-mat techno. Watanabe’s intelligent compositions make his music more listenable than either typical trance or tedious new age.
Kush Aurora Bhang Ragga
Oakland, CA-raised Kush Aurora embraces his New Delhi heritage without denying his high school music obsession: death metal. Like Kid 606 or The Bug, Aurora-also an avowed digital-dub and industrial music fan-doesn’t limit his production to a polite Desi dance sound. Instead, he links up with Jamaican emcees N4SA and Mr. Frank, and percussionists Jagtar Singh and Sukhadia, and adds his own barrage of war zone beats. “Cold World” blends Crip-walking tablas with moody synths, while “Sad Corruption” (with Amit Kumar Das on santoor) is potent South Asian dubstep. With an aural anarchist behind the mixing board, Bhang Ragga does for Punjabi beats what Adrian Sherwood did for dub.
Various Artists Moonstarr Remixes
Toronto is the most frequently overlooked North American city for edgy electronic music, but the town has long had healthy house, drum & bass, and techno scenes. Now add broken beat producer Moonstarr to the list of ignored but not overrated producers from the T-dot. Remixes collects his unique looped and layered reworks of Amsterdam’s Rednose Distrikt, soundtrack legend Ennio Morricone, and fellow future jazz artists Middlefield and Povo. Moonstarr’s signature clipped beats streak along like a racing cyclist, jerking over bass bumps and swerving with clever Latin percussion. With equal quality over the dozen tracks included, it won’t be long before Moonstarr becomes mayor of a newly respected scene.
Sizzla Ain’t Gonna See Us Fall
The title track of this album should cause a lot of lighters to be hoisted in the air-not in the Jamaican soundsystem tradition that mimics gunfire but in the end-of-concert tearjerker fashion of a U2 show. “Ain’t…” juxtaposes a schmaltzy, pop-ballad arrangement with heartfelt verses dedicated to Sizzla’s fans. Instead of a disaster, the half-regular voice/half-falsetto number is instantly catchy; same goes for rootsy tracks like the Digital B-built “Knowing Each Other.” But Sizzla slips when riding emphatic, fast ragga beats (“Kill Yuh,” “Run Out Pon Dem”) where any message is lost amid his shouted lyrics and violent cursing.
Loka Fire Shepherds
Unfurling from a core of rhythms that range from hypnotic to crippling, Fire Shepherds, the first from this team-up between Mark Kyriacou and Karl Webb-of the stunning Super Numeri, an equally puzzling powerhouse of sound-is a serious dazzler. Whether it’s the Hitchcockian grind of “Safe Self Tester,” the prog-dance freakout of “Meet Dad,” or the sprawling two-parter “Tabernacle,” the cinematic Fire Shepherds is an edge-of-the-seat hell ride through the sonic spectrum. Have fun. I envy you already.
Small Sins Small Sins
It’s difficult to overstate the mousey Postal Service vibe-intentional or not-that runs through the debut album from Canadian singer/producer Thomas D’Arcy (a.k.a. Small Sins). Earnest, romantic lyrics that sound test-marketed for the indie demographic paired with shimmering electronic beats beg to be measured against the famous Death Cab-associated electronic tag-team. But Small Sins isn’t just a straight reproduction of Jimmy Tamborello’s glitch-ridden soundscapes. Instead, D’Arcy weaves the occasional acoustic guitar line into a series of bubbling beats and his own cooing, occasionally pained, vocals, which are glibber than Ben Gibbard’s. It’s a more rocking, less synth-obsessed album that will suffer more from comparisons than any egregious faults of its own.
Substance Abuse Overproof
Listening to Los Angeles rappers Eso Tre and Subz trade rhymes is like revisiting old cassette tapes from your youth. The members of Substance Abuse kick off their first full-length with the boisterous, straight-out-of-the ’80s electro beat of “Fake Contact,” but for the most part, they stick with the jazzy production and occasionally dark piano lines of early ’90s hip-hop. They’re more into storytelling than braggadocio, stretching out songs instead of trying to cram in turns of phrase like their guest MF Doom, who fills a few bars on “Profitless Thoughts.” But like most nostalgia trips, memories of this disc get hazy pretty quickly.
I‘m Not a Gun We Think as Instruments
Aqueous electro-coustic composition is more often than not relegated to the “chill out” bin. To place I’m Not a Gun in that category would be shortsighted, however. Sure, initially there is plumed poise, but this project of John Tejada and Takeshi Nishimoto has a rustling undercurrent that may be crisp but never chills. Much the way a spider’s fragile filaments compound into a deceptively deadly snare, there is a crepuscular wooziness to the svelte programming and spacious seven-string pluck that finally tightens into something almost predatory by album’s end.
The Streets The Hardest Way to Make an Easy Living
From bum to bum-rushed, Mike “The Streets” Skinner has charted his own pitfalls and pratfalls across three scuffed albums where he has gone increasingly further off-and into-his own head. Where Skinner once drew detailed cross-sections of an optimistic everyman with bruised candor, now fame just seems to have him sketched out. Conversely, the fractured garridge-brushed beats are even more creatively decorated and distressed. Still, nuanced arrangements don’t excuse Skinner’s most drug-fueled and self-destructive narratives. He excels at cheeky piss-takes on enduring (no-laughing) matters and general malaise, so hopefully this album’s hermetic narratives are merely reflections in the rearview.
