No Fear Of Pop

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Review: Oneohtrix Point Never “R Plus Seven”

24 Sep 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski

I bought Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam right before listening to R Plus Seven. This particular AC album is the one I never was able to get into; it's also the one that coincidentally sounds most like the style at once encountered on Oneohtrix Point Never's much anticipated new work. If you're familiar with Strawberry Jam, this is a good foretelling of the direction OPN is traveling towards: A strobing, choppy, indecisive, fast, and interruptive mood.

At the same time, R Plus Seven is a new age album. New age is inherently spiritual, and there is likewise something spiritual, or post-spiritual, about OPN which all his listeners likely enjoy (the same can be said for AC). That said, the church organs, fragmented oriental sitars, choral drone, and chiming rhythms all broadcast a touch of spirituality throughout the album; yet there's also the love-for-the-natural-world and its caprice running around. "Zebra," for example, entails compelling layers which almost act like the striped, undulated creature itself. Uplifting and implicative of wild movement, the track creates the visual effect of a zebra running, an action which animates its stripes against a view of some kind of scenery. In a way, it embodies an appraisal for nature documentaries, or represents the perspective eager to relate, something quintessentially new age and quasi-spiritual. But, as we can see, nature has a tendency to cruelly interrupt.

There's also something nostalgic about "Zebra" in particular. The melodic interface, house keys, and trancy concord that hit almost as a surprise although fittingly all have a fall time 2002 feel, awkwardly. Then, completely changing during the last half of the song, OPN offers a backwards version of the previous melody with a looping sax breathing on top of it.

Another striking component of spirituality, or post-spirituality, is the torn up vocal samples of preachings and poetries hacked away at by both the wind and digitalization. One wonders what they are, since we have seen over and over that OPN's sample bank tends to be off-beat and sublime. “He/she" reminds me of blending Dead Can Dance with Tortoise's beloved “Suspension Bridge,” while the opening track “Boring Angel” mirrors Animal Collective's “Fireworks” combined with “#1.” Lastly, "Problem Areas" doubtlessly has a kinship to late 90s jungle sampling.

“Along” gives us some quiet OPN melodic drone, a little more of the feel found in the earlier releases, pre-2011. One of OPN's signatures, apart from video game theory and nostalgia for the future, might be that he changes the loop sequence just as we begin to fall into it. If we listen to Rifts back-to-back with R Plus Seven to build a comparison, we experience less solid objects and a lot more concentration with the former, less loops switching into dissonance, just loose melodic dissonance, and, perhaps, lamentation (I've always thought early OPN is very sad). “Cryo” is a great example of both.

Notwithstanding, there are no songs that jump out at the listener. They require a few listens and attempts at understanding the rhythm and logic behind the album. Every time it seems like something might open, that doors might open, the frame moves on to a different view, forgetting about the promising moment that was just at hand. The album is too busy with itself, repeating and eating itself, and is bursting at its seams full of choppy voices and sixteenth notes, not going anywhere but wildly suggestive of doing so. If that is the intention, I reckon that the thematics at work are indeed very concentrated. The intented atmosphere of this release is to compel before disappointing ears and imaginations via interruption without any graspable reason or aesthetic. It's like doing theoretical math with symbols which hold no numerical value, then forging a sum, like a literal r + 7. But I don't know anything about math, nor its influences on the spiritual, I just have apperceptions.

R Plus Seven is out September 30th/October 1st on Warp Records. Stream the whole album now via NPR or Spex.

Win Tickets for TOYS with Lando & Essáy at Loftus Hall

24 Sep 2013 — Henning Lahmann

This Saturday, September 28, Berlin-based producer/DJ collective TOYS is going to take over Neukölln's Loftus Hall for a night of dazzling and perfectly balanced contemporary electronics, featuring Berlin via San Francisco artist Antaeus Roy aka Lando Kal or simply Lando, of Rush Hour and Hotflush fame and probably equally well known as one half of Lazer Sword. He will be joined by one of Germany's finest young producers, Heidelberg resident Essáy – recently featured on this site as part of the compelling Blank Tracks #1 compilation – who will bless Loftus Hall with a live set of his "emotional electronica" (his words, not mine). The bill is completed by local DJ and TOYS member Asa 808 and CutOff!CutOff!.

Listen to Essáy's official promo mix below.

To win 1 x 2 guest list spots for the event, write a comment into the box below before Friday 12pm CET (and make sure we can reach you via Facebook). For further info head over to RA or Facebook.

Decibel Festival 10 Preview: Cosmic Adventures with The Orb and Juan Atkins

23 Sep 2013 — Evelyn Malinowski

There will be bolstering traces of nostalgia this upcoming week in Seattle, just in time for the fresh arrival of the autumn, post-apocalypse year 2013.

On board for this occasion are historical acts such as The Orb and Juan Atkins, a brief but satiating line-up for Saturday's Cosmic Adventures showcase at Showbox at the Market, starting at 10pm. Warming up the adventure will be San Francisco's Nick Monaco, a shining star on Dirtybird and notable figure America's contemporary contribution to the global house community, produces tracks and remixes that possess a type of refreshing, kind-hearted voluptuousness:

It excites me to have the opportunity to preview one of my long-time favorite acts who will be throwing their hands up in accordance to the anniversary spirit afoot in Seattle. Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann, aka The Orb, are also celebrating an anniversary; however, theirs is a longer and perhaps more obscure duration. While dB has been bringing live and international electronica, as well as premiere technology, to the vicinity for ten years, 2013 marks The Orb's twenty-five year partnership, and the duo has been touring in order to help spread the vibes of longevity.

The Orb has always been a unique experience. Their sound has for long been one encompassing the allusive intersection between dancehall and ambient noise while remaining positive and fun-loving, unapologetically quirky and interested in the whole world. Their soundscapes have presumably matured with the technology; yet, not much else appears to have changed, most of all their strangeness. Displaying this with their most recent release which features vocals from the one and only Lee Scratch Perry, we find their celebratory mood at an elevated level of playfulness in the redux of the classic “Little Fluffy Clouds,” re-centerd as “Golden Clouds.”

Fehlmann and Paterson have been plenty busy over the years. Beyond touring this last year for their anniversary, the duo releases an album once a year on average, most recently the collaboration piece with Lee Scratch Perry, preceded by a second greatest hits album and soundtrack to the short film Battersea Bunches, which links the 2005 favorite Okie Dokie It's the Orb on Kompakt to a not so distant place. The enchanting “Land of Green Ginger” appears on Bicycles & Tricycles, released one year before.

Surveying the most recent Orb releases and connecting them back to the classics also reveals that their 90s electronica sound has unabashedly remained the same. It is a staple of what Paterson and Fehlmann wish to convey to those who participate in Orblivion. Atkins can be considered one of those participants, however coming from an independent, even more impressive history. Atkins' most recent work, Borderlands, is a collaboration with Moritz Von Oswald (Basic Channel, Maurizio, Rhythm & Sound), whose work and sharing Berlin with Fehlmann confirms a full-circle of cured and professional techno design. The album likewise complements the longterm "techno alliance" between Detroit and Berlin.

This aside, it is at no mistake a part of techno's common knowledge that Atkins is one of the primary pioneers of Detroit techno and the coiner of the name of the epic genre. In excusing the heaviness of generalizations, he is agreeably treated as the father of the genre. Along with his early companions in exploring this field (Saunderson, May, AKA the Belleville Three), the earliest and best techno hits have unmistakable ties to Atkins: Cybotron's "Clear," Model 500's "No UFOs," and more. Catching Atkins live during a festival full of anniversary and coming-of-age enthrallment seems rather imperative.

A 2007 remix album of Model 500's beautiful “Starlight” works to immortalize Atkins' tradition of simplicity. The original single from 1995 features the stunning remix from MVO, while the recent re-release broadcasts the hypnotics of Echospace, Deepchord, and Soultek.

Indeed, there are many causes for celebration and reflection in store at the 10th Decibel Festival. It seems to me that the Cosmic Adventures showcase will serve as the center crux for looking back and not fearing the future, but instead, as was the case in Detroit and Berlin toward the end of the former century, dancing to its uncertainty in the organized rhythm of four to the floor.

Be sure and check out dB's anniversary teaser, and see you on the dancefloor!

Faint Wild Light “Debris (Ricardo Donoso Remix)” (exclusive)

23 Sep 2013 — Henning Lahmann

We'd like to believe that in terms of music, we have seen more or less everything, but as far as surprises go, this one hit us completely unprepared: James Ginzburg, otherwise known as one half of Bristol-based noise luminaries Emptyset, entering almost unbelievably sincere, traditional folk territory as Faint Wild Light, out of the blue releasing a self-titled full-length that must be considered one of this year's most unabashedly beautiful albums. In fact, the whole piece feels almost too delicate, too fragile and genuinely personal – to avoid writing 'sacred' – to be thrown into today's seemingly inevitable circus of remixes and edits.

This is in any case what I would have argued before listening to the fabulous and convicning reinterpretation of LP opener "Debris" by Rio de Janeiro-born experimental musician and Digitalis affiliate Ricardo Donoso, whose latest album Assimilating the Shadow was one of last year's most undeservedly overlooked works of intricately textured minimal electronics. Donoso's approach to "Debris" is cautious enough to retain the original version's brittleness while at the same time sufficiently confident to turn it into a work of his own. The result is one of the best remixes of 2013, precisely due to the fact that it's not trying to do anything unnecessarily spectacular. Take a listen below.

Faint Wild Light is out on Digitalis and available via Boomkat. Highly recommended.

Watch the video for Ginzburg's original version below:

Watch: Dresden Dresses “Basalt”

23 Sep 2013 — Parker Bruce

Montréal's Antoine Lahaie aka Dresden Dresses has a new video out for his song "Basalt", which was on his ☹EP last year. François Pisapia did it, and its protaganist is someone named Genova Girl (which is Lahaie wearing a full body suit painted by Julien Ceccaldi]). We follow her as she goes to a dentist appointment, smokes a fuck ton of cigarettes, walks around Montréal, goes to the awesome chain store Jean Coutu, and finally checks into a motel where she plays dress up and has a party of one, all whilst taking a bunch of selfies on a video camera and iPad. Watch the quite remarkable piece below.

You can still download ☹EP on the artist's bandcamp. Also, Dresden Dresses will be performing a show with SSION during POP Montréal next week.

StaG “I Think I’ll Shout”

20 Sep 2013 — Parker Bruce

Los Angeles' StaG have a really sweet origin story on their Facebook page: "We met when we were 5 years old in a Tee Ball league, and have gone to school together from first grade to college." The band's new track "I Think I'll Shout" is tropicalia meets the forest, equally showing the both their LA and Colorado sides. Their second album, Difference, will be out soon. StaG is also going to play CMJ in New York in October.

Jensen Sportag “Under the Rose”

20 Sep 2013 — Parker Bruce

Jensen Sportag's first album, Stealth of Days (that definitely beats Haim's "Days Are Gone") is coming closer. Single "Under the Rose" takes the stab out of every aspect of it. Instead of synths pummeling you in the face in a campy way, they get pressed and mushed into the ether. With this track, Jensen Sportag have made malleable solidity. The boys have really finagled the picture of stealth here. The album is out November 12 on the ever-reliable Cascine.

TORN HAWK “‘96 Galant”

20 Sep 2013 — Trey Reis

Beer on the Rug is one of the major tape labels championing that special blend of electronic music which pushes things forward by repurposing the artist’s scope of the past. It’s like an alternative timeline where the sound of hi-fi guitar shredding, mid-range drum hits, and soft synthesizer melodies never became cheesy. Take this new release from TORN HAWK for example, and try and really listen to it as if you never heard the music at JCPenney’s while shopping for your new dining set or a nice sweater. Doesn’t it include most of the dreamy elements trending in pop music? Maybe it’s hard to recognize under the outer layer of smooth distortion. But that’s kind of the point. Simultaneous defamiliarization and refamiliarization of the musical sounds we’ve been trained to ignore.

Fist from TORN HAWK is available digitally now, and will see its physical tape release sometime in the near future via Beer on the Rug.

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