Evermore synonymous with the term “nice,” Morr Music inaugurates a new series of collaborations with one of their established artists and one-time collaborators. Into Forever sees glacial post-rocker and NYC conceptual artist Alexander Perls (Icebreaker International) soak his Morr veteran and beat loving comrade’s melodic IDM-referencing excursions in shimmering vats of carefully evolving, intricately layered guitar treatments. It’s all very, “Me-and-My-Astral-Pegasus-Just-Landed-On-Planet-Neptune-On-An-Interstellar-Love-Mission.” Which isn’t to say the 45 minutes of well-assembled musical collaboration isn’t enjoyable. It’s just “nice.”
Bilious Paths
One can always count on
Detalles Shapes Of Summer
LA-based pianist Kate Simko and Chilean electronic-head Andres Bucci recently began collaborating as Detalles. Their debut album is a supple, minimalist tapestry of precision click-pop and plaintive piano and other acoustic instruments with a South American flair. “Rhodes Relejadas” has all the quietude required of most experimental electronic music, but Detalles mute the effects to produce a warmly wonderful cut. On the other hand, “Plus/Mas” brims with Akufen-ish uptempo pluck without succumbing to crass techno tendencies (likely due to John Tejada’s mastering). Delightful in its execution, Shapes lilts through themes in ways usually limited to classical compositions.
Chris Clark Empty The Bones Of You
Fresh on the heels of his “Ceramics Is The Bomb” EP, Chris Clark digs deeper into the melodic IDM territory that Warp’s not explored since Autechre’s Incunabula, placing Clark in the surprising-if unenviable-spot of having Warp’s best release in recent memory. A cracking first track, “Indigo Optimus” posits all the crunchiness of glitch programming, but reins it in under a harrowing, dark chord structure. Likewise, the title track plays deftly with spatial effects and punctuated ambience that suggests any number of post-industrial electronic artists, not Warp’s usual navel-gazing stock. In fact, Empty sounds a lot like L’Usine (American Jeff McIlwain), and that might be the highest compliment that can be paid Clark-and Warp-at this point.
Tobias Thomas Smallville
Although one of Kompakt’s less visible family members, Tobias Thomas has been intimately involved in the Cologne techno label’s dirty work since its earliest days. Not a beat-mixer (gaffes make it obvious it’s not digitally edited), Smallville purports to reflect the growth of a small dancing community-small, as in beatless (Kaito’s mesmerizing “Release Your Body”) and narrow-ranging (it’s similarly calm through select cuts by Aril Brikha, Jan Jelinek, and Le Dust Sucker). The release is a pleasant if temporary indulgence amidst so many balls-to-the-wall anthem comps out right now. Oh, and it doesn’t have shit to do with the TV show.
Soul Purpose Breaking Records
Hip-hop trio Soul Purpose marks an auspicious debut with this album, a broad-ranging collection, including tracks like the battle rhyme “Take Cover,” “The Other White Meat,” the stark indictment of justice system abuse, and the string-backed “I Stay Busy.” The group-MC Mazzi and production duo Koncepts and Zvi-craft an album of bold horns and an old-school style they update freely. Minus the excessive interludes (seven, plus an intro and an outro, complete with sappy kid) and the rather dull title track, the album works both as a whole and piecemeal, and promises even more in the future.
K.I.T.S and P.I.T.S K.I.T.S ‘n’ P.I.T.S. Presents Gumbo
If titling an album Gumbo seems forced-lots of influences, we get it-it’s forgivable when that album comes through, as this disc does. A collaboration between P.I.T.S (a.k.a. P.E.A.C.E. of Freestyle Fellowship) and his cousin K.I.T.S, the album blends styles so easily all you notice is the end result. From the stylistic, low-key consciousness of “Boyz N Da Hood (Watts Up)” to the bass-driven “Nervous Bomb” to my favorite, “D.S.L.”-a tight pop culture catalogue, even punning off names of various Pokemon-the album serves up tracks that are intelligent without condescension, fun without pandering.
Danny McMillan Inflight Sessions 02
McMillan has been a mainstay of the British breakbeat scene since he was 15, and it shows: his latest album coheres without slipping into homogeneity, the smooth mixing seeming near-effortless. This disc comprises eleven tracks, including work from McMillan and longtime collaborator Adam McEvoy (billed as McMillan and Tab), Meat Katie and Lee Coombs. The result is a techy breakbeat album that travels from an atmospheric start with Klaus’s “The Big Man” through darker (sometimes bongo-laced) offerings, reaching near a close with Katie and Coombs’s appropriately titled “Not House Music.” McMillan proves again why he’s had such staying power.
Lizz Fields Bydaybynight
The second thing you notice about Lizz Fields’s debut album bydaybynight, besides Fields’s beautiful voice, is how much farther she could have taken it-but didn’t. The self-produced CD has some high points; on opener “I Gotta Go,” Fields shows some great nuance, and “Star Gazer” is solid on all fronts. But many of the songs sound too alike, treading and re-treading much of the same territory. It’s souled-out and mellow ground, yes, but you still wish for something to help Fields take that one more step into greatness; she sounds like she could have it in her.
Sustainer Cuantico
Infusing electronic music with an artistic aesthetic is certainly a more cultured production approach-but it doesn’t guarantee great music. A nod to what his label calls new “Spanish Modernism,” Barcelona’s Alex “Sustainer” Alarcon models his stark tech-house after the same Basic Channel-styled grooves so recognizably purveyed by his German distributor, Kompakt. Yet while Alarcon’s ambition is clear, Cuantico bears telltale signs of a novice producer. The keen rhythmic drive that distinguishes most Kompakt artists is lacking here, and frustratingly, Alarcon’s progressions are so subtle that his promising pieces sound flatly monotonous. Artistically speaking, more a collection of beat studies than a finished collection.
