REVIEWS July 1, 2003


ALEPH EMPIRE- "Playback Device Confusion Vol 1"
3" shaped CD Mego
Aleph Empire is Daniel Löwenbrück, founder of the German Tochnit Aleph label. This CD presents live noisetablist antics mashing up breakcore beats plus harsh noise and vinyl-fueled deck madness. Pretty well done due to a nice use of dynamics and odd scratchy silences. Very cut-up but also very listenable. Löwenbrück works his magic on harsh Tochnit Aleph releases by Schimpfluch Gruppe, noise veterans K2 and Randy Yau, French weirdo artiste Costes and grind legends Fear Of God. He then throws some more beat-oriented (and non-Tochnit Aleph) tracks by Noize Punishment, Doormouse and Stuntrock and Arsedestroyer on the turntable and works the whole into a swirling mess of confusion. I wonder how the final "Auschwitz" sing-a-long bit went down in Vienna. I have to also mention that this is a shaped/cut CD (in the shape of a turntable sitting on a circle) and is just too cool for words.

BRIOKIDS- "Dirty Texas Luvin"
12" Briokids 2003
Houston's Briokids finally make it onto vinyl after a countless series of self-released CDRs. This record contains 2 tracks each from Briokid mainstays iCK00 and Virus B-23 as well as one track from newcomer Trash. The tracks on here mix complex jungle beats and distorted bass on a level with Venetian Snares or Fanny, but with the addition of some swaggering Texas funk. iCK00's "Cuntbumping" and "Stitchface" are heavily distorted headbanging anthems full of nasty samples and screams over stuttering, skipping, jungle-derived rhythms. Virus B-23's tracks are lighter (but only in comparison) with some speedy odd-timed beats hammering through some less menacing textures and melodies- I think I even hear a harp on "Checkouthotchicks". Trash's appropriately titled "Noizework" is the harshest thing on here- a series of endlessly pummeling noise funk loops. Sound and production quality throughout is great- i don't know how well distributed this record is right now but it is well worth tracking down. Contact: www.briokids.com

CDATAKILL- "Brazilian Nightmare"
CD Eupholous (USA) 2002
Zak Roberts, last heard on a split 12" with Minion also on Michigan's Eupholous label returns with this elegantly packaged full-length CDR of dark, beatless ambient tracks. For the most part, Roberts stick to the low-end frequencies- very dense and claustrophobic. Somewhere between the isolationist blackness of Lull and the more abstract textures of Thomas Koner. Recording quality is close to flawless- a great deal of care has been taken to craft each piece and I find myself noticing new sonic details with each subsequent listen. A few of the pieces on here have an orchestral edge that skirts close to horror-movie cliche, but are pulled back by layers of very attractive bass-heavy noise. I have to admit that I do miss the beats- Roberts has a deft touch with these ambient tracks but I do think that his strength lies in the mix between rhythmic and non-rhythmic material.

CHAUVEAU, Sylvain- "Un Autre Decembre"
CD FatCat (UK) 2003
Composer Sylvain Chaveau presents a very brief set of gentle and elegant tracks of piano music with subtle digital embellishments. The brevity of this release (12 tracks in 23 minutes) is really something to be admired- Chaveau has painstakingly reduced each piece to its very essence- leaving sometimes nothing but a bare skeleton of a few gently echoed piano notes. Some of the melodies on here are gorgeous- though the mood is melancholy and wintery. A couple of tracks abandon the piano for looped digital sounds and field recordings. Each piano note is played slowly and deliberately- when tracks hover around the one-minute mark you know the composer is going to make the most of every gesture. The spirit of Erik Satie (and maybe Eno) hovers over these compositions but that doesn't really explain their wistful charm. A huge amount of beauty, mystery and sadness packed into a perhaps deceptively simple 23 minutes.

DIN-ST- "Ladycracker EP"
VARIOUS ARTISTS- "Speedhall"
12" Koolpop 2003
Germany's always-classy Koolpop label returns with two great-sounding and very worthwhile releases. "Speedhall" is three-way split of blistering ragga-drenched breakcore/jungle tracks from Kovert, Amboss and FFF. Every track on this EP is top-notch (even the hyper mashed-up take on mid-90s cheesehall classic "Informer"), as the boom-boom-thwack of dancehall is shredded by speedy breakbeats, out-of-control rave sirens and huge distorted basslines. DIN-ST (Frederic Stader aka Fever and DJ Maxximus) throws in some sampled ragga flavor of his own on the A-side of his 12", but the results are more fragmented and cerebral, if no less punishing and bass heavy. Tracks like "Yes Yes Drum and Bass" move with a rare clarity and confidence, making great use of harsh distorted rhythms while remaining rich with sonic detail. The B-side sees Stader exploring a wide variety of electronic flavors, from dark drill'n'bass to eastern-tinged downtempo all done with a great flair and huge amounts of funk. Contact: www.digitalworldnet.org

FELIPE, Dino- "Dino Felipe as Flim Toby"
CD Schematic (USA) 2002
Dino Felipe De La Vega was in a band called Old Bombs, an outfit weird enough to have released a split release with Wolf Eyes on the Betley Welcomes Careful Drivers label. Dino also leads his own noise/no-wave rock band, the catchily named Fukktron. This CD, however, plays like a (gentler) Phthalo-style take on the Schematic sound, full of gentle, scratchy rhythms and playful child-like melodies- more besitos, and less bass booty. Flim Toby is a Dino Felipe alter ego, and this is an imaginary soundtrack of sorts. The music is presented as 24 short sketchy segments. Never abrasive, always easy-going, each track mixes delicate music-box melodies with slow laid-back machine rhythms. The swirling, DSP confusion that has typified recent Schematic output is still present but on a much more microscopic scale- nothing is as bombastic or wide-screen as Otto Von Schirach's "Escalo Frio" or Richard Devine's "Aleamapper". The fragmented quality and live-improv sense of each track recalls the flow of a Pthalocyanine tune, while the tinny, grainy, nearly lo-fi sound palette stays closer to Team Doyobi territory. Most tracks hover around the 2-minute mark, and are varied enough to warrant repeated listens- no track overstays its welcome. In fact, I wish some tracks, like the gorgeous "Swings" played on beyond its minute-and-a-half length. The looped metallic sonorities slightly harsh frequencies and wistful melody work to perfection on that track, and in general this is one of the better CDs I've heard this year.

FANNY- "Fear and Loathing for Dummies"
CD Mirex (Germany) 2002
English guitar man Fraser Runciman aka Fanny was part of the Exploited's touring band and managed to get his name erased from the credits of one 1991 album. Finding himself in Winnipeg, Runsiman caught the same breakbeat malaria bug that 'ails' Venetian Snares, and under the guidance of Mr. Aaron Funk has proceeded to make the switch to electronic music production. This CD presents a selection of Fanny's tracks, some of which have previously appeared on vinyl on Milwaukee's Zod label. Like Vsnares, Fanny has a way with endlessly cascading labyrinths of rhythm. Fanny's tracks though, tend to lose a bit of the funk on occasion, and the killer basslines are absent more often than not. Still, the first 4 tracks on here are comparable to anything Vsnares came up with on his early 12"s, and are actually quite a bit wilder and weirder. Fanny has a tendency to stop the groove at any moment and throw in bucket loads of weird noise- a source of constant frustration to a breakcore/hard jungle DJ but an added bonus for the adventurous listener. There is an appealing nastiness to Fanny's sounds- there is a buzzing, electric vitality that runs through tracks like "Witches" and "New Music", and the sound samples swimming under the drum-wrangling have a stark menace that harkens back to late-period Throbbing Gristle. But TG never caught a groove as hopping as "Getting Fat", even if the distorted percussion reaches Esplendor Geometrico levels of harshness.

FORTÉ, Nick- "Pasted Lakes"
LP Schematic 2003
Brooklyn's Nick Forté is a member of 'ambient punk' duo Christmas Decorations, who released an LP on the Kranky label in 2002. This mini-LP on Miami's estimable Schematic label collects some of Nick's electronic tracks. The album opener is the startlingly good "Green Language", a mix of crunchy loops assembled over a fantastic, dubbed out groove. There are a variety of styles at play here, but it is clear that Nick has a deft touch with the use of effects and the arrangements of simple loops that reminded me of Leafcutter John or Freeform but with an added dub flavor. Short tracks flow freely and organically, from scratchy digital sonics to deep 4/4 beats and spacy beat-less interludes. The only bad thing about this release is that it is much too short- I look forward to much more music from Forté in the future.

HIM- "Many in High Places are Not Well"
CD FatCat / Bubble Core 2003
Doug Scharin's Him returns with a new album that sees him exploring some vocal material alongside the usual mix of heavy jazz-rock tinged grooves and dub atmospherics. I'm not a big fan of the vocal contributions (by guest-stars including Christian Daustreme and Mum's Kristin Valtysdottir) but they are used sparingly, and there are enough perfectly realized all-instrumental moments at play that might make this the best Him album yet. The production is really the star attraction here- super-clean organic sound overflowing with warmth and sonic detail. The overall mood is funky but with a dry feel- which adds up to a bit of krautrock vibe. Late-period Can and even more obscure outfits like Gila or Gomorrah come to mind. Mellow afrobeat guitar and horns weave through head-bopping, interlocking rhythms and super-cool elastic basslines. A bit of spice is added to the mixes by the subtle addition of synths, harps, flutes, handclaps, kora and whatever other detail Scharin cares to call up. The results are dense but not overpowering, as the focus remains on the sensuous grooves and rich melodies.

KIRITCHENKO, Andrey- "Kniga Skazok"
CD Ad Noiseam 2003
Andrey Kiritchenko has been making electronic music in his native Ukraine since the mid-90s. His Nexsound label has issued a handful of CDs and CDRs showcasing Ukrainian and international artists. "Kniga Skazok", a beautifully packaged CD on the German Ad Noiseam label is Kiritchenko's take on glitchy atmospheric music using rhythmic pops and clicks. Andrey's touch is a bit less stark than, say, Carsten Nicolai or Ryoji Ikeda- some swooshy background synth-like noises fill out the mix. The first four tracks are marred by some two-note "synth" melodies that sound a bit out of place next to the morse-code bleep beats and scratchy loops. The subsequent tracks, like "Put", which might be my favorite, keep the focus on the intricately textured echoed blips and glitches that hover over deep recurring bass tones. The bass tones are deep, rich and very clean, setting up twitchy 4/4 grooves over which the tracks develop. The best of these elegant tracks are on a level somewhere between Pan sonic and Richie Hawtin, but with a more "human" and less stridently minimal feel.

MIRROR- "Solaris"
CD Idea Records (USA) 2002
Inspired by the classic novel by Stanislaw Lem this is one 41-minute track of spacey, reverbed and echoed ambience with a dark edge. Working from (apparently) acoustic sources experimental music veterans Christoph Heemann and Andrew Chalk slow things down to a crawl and add effects stretching out the tiniest sounds into endless walls of echo. The spaceyness harkens back to the floating soundscapes of Tangerine Dream's "Atem" or "Alpha Centauri" but the stark atmospheres align this firmly with the post-industrial constructions of Asmus Tietchens and the Hafler Trio as well as Chalk and Heeman's previous output. Delicate guitar-like pluckings or a high-pitched horn or flute can sound like feedback, and either can be made to sound like just about anything in the hands of these two expert musicians. A pretty essential release, elegantly packaged by this new Texas-based label.

MASSIMO- "Hello Dirty"
CD Mego
More Mego coolness from Italian noise-monger Massimo. The cover graphics are tops if you like Japanese near-kiddie porn, and there's more porn on the liner notes if that's what you're looking for but the sound seems a bit lacking. It doesn't help that the digital distortion that coats the entire contents of this CD has a monotonous sameness that wears on the listener. This is not the sort of (analog or digital) distortion that wavers in texture and tone but a precisely calculated in-the-red computer approximation that doesn't lend itself to repeated listens. Whatever is under all the distortion isn't bad- mostly loops, feedback squeals and appropriated riffs and melodies- my wife thought she heard Loverboy in there somewhere but I'm not too sure. Massimo has guts and I like his attitude but I can't say I enjoyed this as much as some of his other work I’ve heard.

MURAILLE, Dorine- "Mani"
CD FatCat
Beautiful subdued music that takes guitars, double bass, piano, and voices and gently mangles them with digital processing. Dorine_Muraille is the alias of Frenchman Julien Locquet who previously recorded as :Gel for the Artefact and Active Suspension labels. The mood here is one of child-like wonder, a bit like Wunder (Karaoke Kalk) or maybe some of Alejandra and Aeron's more whimsical works but not overly precious like some of Nobukazu Takemura's work. The source recordings are highly melodic and attractive, and the processing never overshadows their presence. The digital cuts and effects add a dreamlike layer to the whole, but the real instruments and voices are almost always discernible in the mix. I don't know what it is, especially since the digital interruptions aren't exactly ground breaking but I find this to be very soothing and enjoyable. Maybe it's the French spoken and singing voices, male, female and sometimes child-like that drift through the mix. Maybe it's just a certain French-ness to the melodies and moods that I find attractive- either way this is a very beautiful and charming CD and I highly recommend it.

NOIZE CREATOR- "Deferred Media"
CD Ambush (UK)
Stefan Senz, owner of Dresden’s Suburban Trash Industries label, and a veteran of the abstract, experimental breakbeat scene presents an EP of seven tracks of breakcore and hard noise-jungle heavy on the funk. This music positively swings no matter how noisy and mangled it gets. There is a heavy use of screaming white-hot distortion that perhaps typifies the London-based Ambush label but the noise is used strategically in the mix and the results will definitely get your body moving and your head nodding. "Broken Bar" is a nasty hardcore groover punctuated by deranged screams and out-of-control synth bleeps all moving at a pace that makes drill'n'bass sound positively soothing. Shorter cuts like "Per Thousand" and "Have a Piss" blend crackling distortion and stop-and-go Jungle-flavored breakbeats. "NBK- South London Mix" adds a bombastic, symphonic loop to the rough hammering beats and might be the best and most funky track on offer here. "Hate Cops Remix" piles on the heaviness and drops the beat into a deep time-stretched skank until the breakbeats erupt yet again in torrents of white noise. Production-wise these tracks sound fantastic, with clear sounding slow-motion ambient melodies swimming under the complex breakbeats, while the speaker-shaking bass fights it out with the harsh white noise blasts.

ORIGINAL HAMSTER- "West Coast Hardocker"
CD Background Records (Chile)
Chile's Vicente Sanfuentes presents 16 succinct tracks that playfully and cleverly dismantle electronic music with wit and an attractive "pop" flair. Half of these tracks play like sampledelic and plunderphonic booty electro with stolen raps and lots of dsp filigree. "Tacky Bag Bob" mixes Sir Mix a Lot booty rap booming booty bass, crazed digital processing and a cock-rock lead guitar solo. The awesome "Notorious Dsp" is a pitched down/vocodered version of Biggie's "Hypnotize" that rolls and struts with an attitude that almost matches the original. Other tracks like "Digital Gangbang" and "House G" offer no obvious sample sources and generate melodic, subtle and skeletal electro-ish grooves out of short, clipped snippets of digital sound. "Hell Yeah" is a low-res tune with a cut-up stuttering beat that seems about to hit a monster party-rocking groove but pulls back every time- what a tease. The nicely titled "Timestretching Is Not A Crime" mixes an impressively complex stereo-panned rhythm with a vocodered vocal hook. Sound quality is superb throughout. Even though many genres and sounds are being mashed together there is a careful attention to keeping the mix sparse, detailed and crystal clear. Packaging on this disc, on the Chilean Background Records label is also elegant and subtle. Lots of talent and skill on display here- and hopefully we will be hearing more from Sanfuentes in the future.

SCORN- "Plan B"
CD Hymen
I hadn't really kept up with the work Mick Harris since mid-period Scorn's "Gyral" (Earache) way back in 1995. This handsomely packaged 2003 release on Hymen is surprisingly good and makes me wonder what I might have missed in the interim. Though definitely not as sluggish as I remember, the basic Scorn sound remains still very dark and stripped-down with a focus on the awesome bowel-churning bass lines and heavy-duty beats. The tempos on some of these tracks pick up occasionally, and (seriously) the feel is not unlike some form of industrial 2-step. For example, the best track on here might be "Sleep When Home" with its swinging stop-and-go beat which plays like current R&B and HipHop mangled by that amazingly dirty swooshing bass. The bass growls menacingly and impressively, and the sub-bass frequencies are as physical as anything I've heard in a good while. In a club system these tracks could be lethal. The ending track "Doors" offers more stuttering beats and an awesome breakdown where the rhythm morphs into a truly funky slow motion workout- top notch work from Mick Harris who seems to be at the top of his game.

SIX AND MORE- "Way Out"
CD Archegon (Germany) 2003
The concept here is live electronic music for groups of six and more musicians recorded live with no overdubs at four separate concerts between 1999 and 2001. There are no less than 42 different musicians represented, and as many as 26 playing at one of the sets on here, using everything from analog synths, turntables and computers to beer cans, sax and stones. A carefully designed and documented graphic chart helps the listener keep track of the many players and instruments on each piece. Archegon label head Gunter Schroth is the only constant presence on all 16 tracks. This is a difficult disc to pin down, as you might imagine from live sets featuring this many musicians playing dozens of instruments. The best tracks have a timeless quality that makes the music sound like it could have been recorded at any time between 1966 and the present. One moment you could be listening to a lost ESP-Disk session, or an early Residents b-side, or a Farmers Manual live set- sometimes all within a single piece.

TERMINAL 11- "Speed Modified"
CD Phthalo
Manic beats and synths from Mike Castaneda on Dimitri Fergadis' always-intriguing Phthalo label. Castaneda keeps things varied, and mixes some breakbeats along with some 4x4 rhythms over some rough and uneven textures that are never too distorted. Like Dimitri's own Phthalocyanine project this music feels like a very "human" take on 'techno'- imperfect but very vital. Some of the sounds on here had me thinking back to the era of Ministry and Skinny Puppy, but cut-up and arranged in the spirit of more recent reference points such as Kid606 or Otto Von Schirach. Some tracks certainly wouldn't be too out of place on a Schematic comp. This music is occasionally dark but never harsh, and it grew on me with each subsequent listen. There is enough variety in mood, texture and rhythm to keep me interested throughout its 35-minute length.

TIMEBLIND- "Most Eye: The Rastabomba Mixes"
CD Orthlorng Musork
Timeblind's "Rastabomba", from last year's "Rugged Redemption" full-length gets the remix treatment from Kid606, Kit Clayton, DJ Rupture and Timeblind himself. The original track, which is also included on here, is a stuttering mid-tempo groove over which a Jamaican-accented narrator speaks about solar energy and "mankind technology". "If computer so big and bad why can't computer turn on the light, eh?" he asks as the beat and echoed synth washes drone on endlessly. The downtempo-feel of the groove and the patois reminds me of "Going Under" by Rocker's Hi Fi, last heard on Kruder & Dorfmeister's "K&D Sessions". The best remix on here might be DJ/Rupture's- who adds a new spoken intro and pretty much discards the original and replaces it with a swiftly moving hardcore/breakcore tune. Not so much a remix as an obliteration. Kit Clayton keeps the vocal and adds a heavy ragga dancehall riddim and distant melodica-like swirls. The first 3 minutes of Kid606's mix don't sound like Kid606 at all- he builds a nice uptempo groove under the vocal, with some great bass sounds. Then the amen breaks pop in and the bass seems to fade into the background as the breakbeats flail all over the place. The two Timeblind mixes work better, and the last one builds an excellent synth-bass groove that I like better than the original even though it dispenses with the vocal.

YASUNAO TONE
CD Asphodel
Composer Yasunao Tone was an early Fluxus member and is credited as being one of the first artists to use the sound of damaged, skipping CDs in his compositions. The 3 long tracks on this CD continue Tone's exploration of the digital glitch and is full of dense snippets of sound flailing in all directions in a seemingly random manner. Tone's approach differs from people like Oval in that he seems to use the skip as a way to generate fast, ever shifting explosions of sound, without any of the melodies or melancholy that soften Markus Popp's works. Every track is a series of endlessly cascading tiny bursts of noise twitching and bouncing around for a few brief seconds before a new set of sounds emerges to do the same. There is also apparently very little processing to soften the often harsh sonorities of the skips- the results are raw and immediate. Concentrating on sound quality and texture might be completely beside the point with a work like this and a composer with Tone's credentials but these tracks are not exactly attractive- very trebly and full of digital hiss with a minimal use of bass frequencies. The most notable and impressive feature of each piece is the speed with which the skips rush by- the total effect is very disorientating, confusing and more than a little exhausting. In small doses, however, this music is potentially lethal.

UNIFORM- "Not A Word"
CD Ad Noiseam 2003
Uniform is Wajid Jaseen, aka 2nd Gen who previously released a full-length effort of punkish techno/breakbeat tracks on Mute records. Uniform is a more subdued and minimal side-project, full of reverbed loops and ambient echoes. The tracks have a starkness that is quite attractive- and a certain dark mood, like on "Jeckyl and Hyde Situations" where the mix of distant machine-like sounds and effect-drenched female voice resurrects the spirit of Throbbing Gristle. The results are much less dense than TG but the atmosphere of quiet dread is very much in line with industrial music of the early 80s. There is something sketchy and maybe unfinished about many of these tracks- the loops flow in, are overcome by digital effects and then fade out to silence. There is a great reliance on the effects in each track- unfortunately, if you've been buying any form of IDM or, say, Mille Plateaux-type music for the past few years these effects are going to sound very familiar. A little more attention paid to the variety of processing employed would have made this a more successful disc. The use of very submerged, unintelligible vocals is much more effective- like on "The Trees Will Kneel", where a male voice seems on the verge of whispering something ("kill"...?) we can almost understand. The result is riveting and mysterious.

VARIOUS ARTISTS- "Circuits of Steel"
2xCD SSS Records
A massive double CD compilation of alphabetically arranged electronic music from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Like most regional compilations there is a whole mixed bag of things on here representing every established form of electronic music you can think of. Two artists really stand out- Colongib and Xanopticon. Colongib does something distinct and memorable with the melodic IDM formula and transcends the genre through a careful attention to sonic details and varied textures. Colongib's track "Flat Roch" is a low key, spare mix of synth melodies and slightly dirty drum bleeps that had me thinking of a slightly more subdued Ventolin-era Aphex- never a bad thing. Beyond that, it was generally the harder-hitting stuff that impressed me the most. Xanopticon presents a flawlessly executed track full of dizzyingly complex beats and noise invention that never loses its groove. Other standouts include Geobot's hissy noise backdrop, dev/null's nasty cut-up bleep-core, Holocaust's raw stuntrock-isms, 8Cylinders cut full of head-nodding booming-bass and Girl Talk's melodic skewed pop. With 28 tracks to choose from, there's plenty more on offer- and all of it is at least listenable and competently done. The packaging isn't the most attractive thing I've ever seen but if you're curious about what's going in Pittsburgh this is a good place to start.

VARIOUS ARTISTS- "Japanese Avant Garde"
CD Sub Rosa
If I understand correctly this CD was compiled to commemorate the appearance of two Japanese filmmakers at the 2002 Brussels Festival of Fantasy Film. The two directors, Takashi Miike and Shinya Tsukamoto are represented by two audio excerpts of interviews in Japanese which are translated into English in the liner notes. The CD booklet also includes some very poetic but vague liner notes by David Toop. I'm not sure where the (non-exclusive?) musical tracks on the CD fit in all this- together they add up to an interesting but very uneven compilation of Japanese music. "Big" names like Merzbow and Otomo Yoshihide (solo and with Ground Zero) are represented, as is the sinewave work of up-and-comer Sachiko M. The remaining tracks, however, especially those by So Takhashi, Haco, Bisk, Aki Onda and Yoshio Machida hover around a certain playful and childlike digitally cut-up zone that fits in well with the work of Nobukazu Takemura.

V/VM- "HelpAphexTwin4.0"
CD V/VM Test Records
As the booklet says: "it became cleared and clearer, the more help we gave Ricky, the more he needed..."- which explains this CD, a compilation of two previously released 3" CDs with a few added extra tracks. V/Vm have gone so far as to set up a special website for this (apparently ongoing) series of releases: http://www.helpaphextwin.com. The music on here is remixed or "digitally altered" versions of classic Aphex tracks from "Didgeridoo" to "Drugks". The booklet graphics feature pics of Richard with small dollar signs super-imposed on his teeth and eyes- making this series look like a companion piece to Richard's "26 Mixes for Cash". Tracks like "it's a richJAM's world", which samples a version of Abba's "Money", and the 30-second long "if i were a rickyham" which samples "if i were a rich man" hammer home a vision of Richard as a money-grubbing recluse. It all seems oddly good-natured, especially since, for the most part, V/VM lay off the distortion and work with more "subtle" (really...) ways of dismantling the Aphex sound. Tracks are cut-up, morphed and filtered in ways that the Aphex man himself might approve of. But as V/VM notes: "we don't care because you don't give a fuck".

ZIPPER SPY- "Glass Bomb Baby"
CD Fuzzybox Records (USA) 2002
Maria Moran's Zipper Spy project continues to release music on a wider variety of "genre" labels than anyone else I can think of. Previously associated with the noisier Ground Fault and Vinyl Communications labels, this latest CD is on Fuzzy Box, home of electro-indie pop outfit Flowchart. My favorite Zipper Spy recording is the "Living in the Free World" 12" on Stitching Mixer, where Moran balances hard noise and more ambient sounds to near-perfection. This CD is much gentler than that. Moran's rhythmic tracks are a bit on the awkward side- they don't flow smoothly and the beats and structures sound a bit dated. Especially the tracks ("Slam Jam", "Sippa Snowa") that use breakbeats or drum-and-bass rhythms. The best cuts on here are the ones that play with minimal techno structures, like "Hingslip", "Wreck" or "Click n Gabber". Both these pieces mix Pan sonic-style brutalism with more recent click-house styled sounds. Stuttering echoed loops, with a stark yet funky bounce that are pretty fantastic all around. There is a very attractive playful edge to the music, and it's easy to be charmed by some of the chirpy tunes. But in general I prefer the harsher textures of her noise work.