| 5th January 2008 |
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At the end of last year, whilst reading about Tweaker, I came across reference to a band called
Teargas and plateglass, and picked up Black Triage.
It's a pretty amazing album. There's samples at the amazon link, and also some vids of some of the tracks on
the youtubes.
Simplify this Landscape with Darkness takes a while to get started,
but is a really good track. Because this album scored so highly on my "made-of-awesome-o-meter",
I picked up their other (self titled) release. It didn't make as much of an impact on me, but I decided to pick up
"genocide in Sudan" too, as it's a compilation also featuring them. (Though the track listed on the amazon page "Arkhangelsk" appears
on their self-titled album. but oddly enough, the track that was on the CD I got was actually "A Book of Black Valentines", also
off that same album. The track ordering was also different. Very strange). As for the other tracks on the disc.. Mostly "meh".
Nothing really stands out. The tweaker track is pretty decent, and unavailable elsewhere. (Speaking of tweaker btw, there are some
remixes & rarities as mp3 downloads at the tweaker site which are quite old now, but I only stumbled
across them this week. If you like the tweaker albums, they're more of the same.
At some point in the 1990s, I came across Atari Teenage Riot. I picked up 60 second wipeout on recommendation
from a girl who worked in the indie music store I frequented. When I got home and listened to it, I wasn't entirely sure what to make of it.
Distorted drum machines at ridiculous bpm, some very angry shouty germans screaming a lot, and various techno bleeps and bloops.
A part of me liked it because it was so different from anything else I'd heard. But a part of me hated the headache inducing onslaught.
Whilst it was original, it was also largely.. well, bollocks. I can't remember the last time I listened to it. Possibly 7 years ago now.
This trip down memory lane leads me onto the other two of todays arrivals. Alec Empire was the frontman for ATR, and these two CDs represent
his solo career post-ATR. I'd read in a few places that his more recent work is a lot more 'mature', and more music-like than an all-out noise onslaught.
Intelligence and sacrifice was Alec's first post-ATR release, and in honesty, it isn't /that/ different.
It's more guitar based than techno, and has a 'punk' kind of vibe to the album. It's more listen-to-able, but not something that I expect
to be listening to a lot of. The second disc is instrumental, and is really different. It's entirely synth music, somewhat akin to AFX.
Futurist leans even more towards punky guitars.
Alec aparently just released another album, which is only available in Japan right now.
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| 7th January 2008 |
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dRAWBACKS - iBomb.
I was a big pitchshifter fan a few years back. Then they split up for a while. dRAWBACKS was one of
the splinters that formed from that. (PSI subsequently reformed, but dBS are still around).
Somehow I missed that this album got released back in 2006. It trades PSI guitars for screaming
resonating synths, breakbeats, and less angry vocals. Not bad.
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| 9th January 2008 |
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Christ Analogue - The bitcrusher remixes
I've been putting off buying this forever. This collection of remixes of the last Christ Analogue
album 'everyday is distortion' is fairly decent. Some remixes are actually better than
the original songs. I was somewhat disappointed in Everyday is distortion as an album.
In radiant decay was awesome, and I felt somewhat let down
by its successor. These remixes redeem it slightly, and make me want to go back and give
that second album another chance.
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| 14th January 2008 |
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Scanalyzer - On the One and the Zero
This purchase marks a turning point for me. It's the first digital music I bought.
I actually got a CD too, but immediately after purchasing it, it offered me a free download
of a zip file containing mp3's of the CD I just bought. Nice.
Positron are going digital-only soon.
This album is pretty decent. Nice glitchy bleeps and skronks. Kinda autechre'ish.
There's some tunes on their myspace page
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| 15th February 2008 |
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Destroid - Loudspeaker
Meh. Bird of Prey is pretty much the only song on this album that really stood out to me.
Also, enough of the damn electro ballads already.
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| 25th February 2008 |
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Boom Boom Satellites - Exposed.
Yet again, no US distribution of the latest CD from this kickass japrock band,
which meant I had to pay a fortune to get it.
Over the top power chords, electronic bleeps, and engrish lyrics. Perfick.
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| 29th February 2008 |
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Bitcrush - Epilogue in waves.
I've been looking forward to this for ages. It's pretty awesome dreamy ambient soundscapes.
Makes for good hacking music. I still think I'll be listening to the earlier stuff more though.
'drop entitled' & 'And triage' from 'In distance' kicked so much ass it'll take
something really awesome to top them.
subtractiveLAD - apparatus.
Another release from n5md. Pretty decent. I felt a bit
let down by the last sublad album for some reason. It wasn't particularly bad, it just had
a pretty low re-listen value for me. This new album is a definite improvement in that regard.
Keith Hillebrandt - Blue
Solo effort from former sound designer for Nine Inch Nails.
I've been after this for _years_. I had it on backorder at amazon for ages before getting
"sorry, we give up" mails from the 3rd party distributors. Finally I had a brainwave, and
ordered it directly from the label, Piggyback records. Not only did I get this elusive album,
but they also threw in one of Keith's other CDs that I was unaware of (Magdalenes dream).
(update: just a week later, their website was offline. I wonder if they've gone out of business).
Ironically, now that I have it, two copies have turned up right now for resale on
amazon. The album itself ? Pretty awesome.
I knew what to expect, as I'd heard some of the tracks on Keith's myspace page.
Starless is pretty much the best track of the bunch imo.
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| 2nd March 2008 |
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Nine Inch Nails - Ghosts
I already enthused about how many different kinds of awesome this is in my blog.
9 tracks for free, 36 tracks for $5. just get it already.
Some people liken it to the earlier NIN instrumentals (some even comparing it to 'still'),
but I think these tracks are a little more experimental. Awesome stuff though.
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| 1st April 2008 |
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Final - Infinite Guitar 1 & 2 & guitar & bass improvisations 1 & 2
Woot. Scored a limited (150 copies) edition of this.
Justin Broadrick. Droning. It's Final, what more do you expect?
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| 24th April 2008 |
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Juno Reactor - Gods & Monsters
On my first listen to this, I thought it sucked. Vocals on a JR song? wtf?
I left it a week or two, and tried it again, and was blown away by how
cool some of the tracks are. Immaculate crucifixion is by far the best song
on the album, and probably worth buying just for that song.
The album starts off pretty slowly, and by the middle, has built up something
fierce. Then it kind of winds down again at the end. Still not my favorite
Juno work to date, but it's grown on me a lot since my first listen.
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| May 8th 2008 |
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InnerPartySystem - The Download EP
I felt dirty buying this. But at $1.50, I just couldn't say no.
- "Don't stop" is really catchy, and probably the best song on here.
Glitchy beats, electronic bloops, guitar fuzz, shouty vocals. Works for me.
- "Heart of fire" kicks off with a nasty bass, and then some distorted vocals. Decent song.
- "The way we move" I. Fucking. Hate. Vocoders. This sounds like a bad Cher song. FAIL.
- "Night is alive". Decent chorus, the rest of the song bores the arse off me.
- "The lovers dancing". Bwaaaa, what the hell is this crap? I'm embarressed to own this.
It sounds like a boy band. For some reason, someone saw fit to also include a remix
of this dross too.
Summary: One or two decent 'songs for radio', but a lot of shite too. Probably paid
about $1 too much for this.
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| May 29th 2008 |
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Transitional - Nothing real nothing absent
Jesus, this is heavy. Doomy, gloomy and boomy. Really bass heavy. The first thing
that hit me on this CD was the mastering, which is something I typically take for
granted, but it actually made me want to fire up audacity to see how it looked.
The songs themselves are droney, but with a lot of distortion and brutal crunchy guitars too.
The result sounds epic. I'd been waiting for this album for a while since I heard
'lustless' on their myspace page.
The album version is even better. The only thing that disappoints is that there's
only six songs. 33 minutes of music on a full length release is a bit of a let down,
but they really have left me wanting more.
Final - Fade away
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