On Playin Da Harsez, Toronto’s po-mo dandy Hitz Exprezz simultaneously takes inspiration from DAT Politics and Chingy, from Kid606 and the Kings of Crunk. Putting Hitz’s glitch version of Beyonc»’s “Crazy in Love” (called “Crazy in Plunk”) aside, there are a lot worse ways for a suburban white boy to pay ironic homage to hip-hop than with poinging gabber (“Junk in the Crunk”) and DIY punk cut-ups of ghetto house (“Late At Nite”). As with Chicks on Speed, I’m not entirely sure that Playin Da Harsez‘s harsh techno bounce is the sort of thing you want to listen to at home. But at a club, Hitz Exprezz is surely the prankster jockey to get electro boys’ jodhpurs in a twist.
Various Artists Fabric 14: Stacey Pullen
Stacey Pullen is the funkiest of the Detroit veterans, in part because he strays far outside the confines of pure techno. In fact, Fabric 14 is primarily a house thing, dabbling in tribal patterns, disco loops and crispy tech flavors. Pullen covers all the bases with panache, moving from Pure Science’s shimmering, filter-laden “Get It Back” to Moodyman’s nostalgic ’70s rub “Music People” and the guitar-happy noodle of Solid Groove’s “Flookin’.” But Pullen doesn’t ever reach a peak here, spending more time in the flanged-out upper registers than on the classic Midwestern dancefloor thump he’s known for.
Christophe Charles Undirected 1992-2002
If the fabled “global village” mutates into an actual city, Christophe Charles has the soundtrack. He collages field recordings into a scene in which Hamburg businessmen chat with Calcutta schoolchildren in a Bangkok traffic jam, while Japanese crickets and Italian dogs bicker into the night. In Undirected‘s liner notes, Charles insists that everything here is unmusical, as he lets a computer randomly play his sound files. Yet the result is awfully symphonic, as drones and field noises saunter at a meditative pace. This is raw psychedelia for the Information Age.
Pluramon Dreams Top Rock
The shoegaze revival has not hit Hot Topic retail stores, MTV airways and the pages of SLEAZEnation. Until it does, Pluramon’s shift from being Can’s post-rock stepchild to a shaman conjuring up the sleepwalking ghosts of My Bloody Valentine and Flying Saucer Attack shall delight. Mastermind Marcus Schmickler melts glaciers of lysergic guitar distortion and acoustic porch-jams over bass-blown thunk. Guest singer and Twin Peaks chanteuse Julee Cruise sounds like Dolly Parton imitating the MBV girls, but is nonetheless arresting with her nude-nymph-hysterically-giggling-in-the-woods vibe. While Dreams lacks the DSP punch of Pluramon’s last LP, Render Bandits, it still sounds terribly fresh in such a conservative time for indie rock.
Luomo The Present Lover
No microhouse album has ever been so sexy, so brash, so defiantly macro as Luomo’s sophomore effort. Where the tunes on 2000’s Vocalcity indulged in sustained foreplay, the tracks here strike with a greater sense of urgency, as bulbous bass tones attack the body while platinum hooks burrow their way into your brain. As Australia’s Tim Finney so rightly observes on his weblog (at skykicking.tripod.com), Luomo is the don of neuromanticism, adorning micro music’s frame with lustrous melodic refrains and dizzying dubwise accents. As befits his status as the laptop scene’s matinee idol, some of his concoctions (like the Prince-esque “What Good”) play like the aural equivalent of haute couture, reveling in their own sense of excessive refinement. But the best of these tracks (“Tessio” and “Shelter”) are astonishingly pristine, spilling out of speakers like diamonds dropping from the skies-radiant and deadly sharp all at once.
Various Artists Politronics
One thing hippies and punks had in common was an oppositional impulse. While fans of electronic music are unabashed in their dismissal of pop culture, the movement (large though it may be) has few political aims. In this respect, computer music nerds resemble neither hippies nor punks, but the jazz-fixated hep cats of the 1950s. As with jazzbos, many IDM enthusiasts derive satisfaction not from rebelliousness but from the sense of being included in a rarefied group of aesthetes perched safely above the mainstream morass. Featuring stellar contributions from AGF, Terre Thaemlitz and others, Politronics argues that contemporary electronicists are more politically-engaged than ever before, a case made all the more emphatic by accompanying essays from the likes of Matthew Herbert, Thomas Venker and XLR8R‘s own Philip Sherburne. Fighting the power, one click at a time.
Sami Koivikko Salmiakki
More a disparate collection of singles and B-sides than an album proper, Sami Koivikko’s debut full-length nonetheless offers a vivid snapshot of a young technoist on the rise. Where so many releases on the Shitaktapult label are smeared in grime, this Finnish laptopper’s LP is crisp and clean, chock-full of the sprightly club bangers that have made him the heir apparent to Luomo. Of particular note is Koivikko’s keen melodic sensibility; “Hermonik Lost,” for example, features an elegiac minor-chord sequence reminiscent of Radiohead’s “Pyramid Song,” only funkier. Thom Yorke, eat your heart out.
Organic Thoughts Be Alright
If you’re not familiar with this group, their guest list should help: Prince Poetry guests on the a-side, Peril-L is on the flip, and for the studio heads, one side was engineered by CJ “The Great” Moore. And while Prince Po steals the show, it ain’t all about the guests. The a-side features a lush (and lengthy) Spanish-flavored guitar sample over which each MC flexes taut, multisyllabic rhymes, leading to some hook-croonin’ by Uniq. The flip is a bit slower and more sinister, the “battle” cut to balance the a-side’s “conscious/introspective” cut. Neither is amazing, but both are solid.
Chris Su Satisfy
Critical comes correct with their latest release featuring Hungarian producer Chris Su. “Satisfy” is a rolling amen that will smash any dancefloor, blending soulful vocals, a booming bassline, funky guitar riffs and strong techy influences that start half way through the tune. Flip over to “Try Again” with an even deeper vibe and more soul-tech flavor reminiscent of Matrix’s latest sound. The results equal the love child of liquid and neuro-funk.
Mathematics Here And Now
Mathematics launches their new label Social Studies with this well-calculated release. “Here and Now” kickstarts with a twisting electro synth-line and echoing vocal snippets before dropping in with chopped-up amen breaks, a deep rolling bassline, piano stabs and all the proper elements that we’ve grown to expect from this trio. The flipside, “Backdraft,” comes even stronger, centered around a squelching synth alongside a wobbly bassline, handclaps and chiming keys. An auspicious start from a promising new label.
