Angel 1 “Angel Activate”

07 Nov 2013 — Trey Reis

How do you classify a tape label so consistently unclassifiable? “Post-genre” itself is not a determiner. In fact, those words offer nothing to the listener besides the suggestion that what they are about to hear might not sound even remotely familiar. It makes me think more of the definition of a music label. The word label, in general, is a synonym for genre. Perhaps the only proper classification for releases from labels like Beer on the Rug is “Beer on the Rug,” so we can stop throwing words like “ambient” and “vapor” and “post” at the wall like splatter paint and seeing what it looks like afterward.

Angel Activate, the new Beer on the Rug release from Angel 1 is par for the course in the unclassifiable. Jumping from walls of white noise through daytime television static to party-on-the-floor-above-you bass beats is another solid example of a label so of the times that we probably won’t be able to properly define it until long after these miles of magnetic tape are long gone, decaying slowly into the dirt.

Listen to it below.