Thursday 24 May 2012

The 2kDozen 500: #191 - patten, "GLAQJO XAACSSO"

This one was recomended in my direction by @Yaaard. Very worthwhile listening to his recommendations, it is. And this is in that bracket of sultry, dense, confusing, glitchy techno that I seemed to hearing a lot at the beginning the year. I like it; it gets my brain pumping.

I was a bit unsure about using the "techno" word at first, partly because it seems so nebulous and probably outdated. But I'm sure I hear all the ingredients moving around outside of their usual boxes. A lot of sounds performed live too. I mean, it could be all of it or none; but the electricity definitely sounds as though it's in the one room at the same time; all tangy and pungent.


Does this fragmented and glitched up haze reflect the digitising of our whole lives into pictures on our phones and ethereal MP3s and everything else? And do I have a more banal point to make? No; shall I move on then?*

Glacial slink on "Ice". "Crown 8vo" is thick with rainforest clicks and swarming rattling sounds. An ancient sounding synth chop announces "Words collided" and there are steam engine hisses. "Blush mosaic" breaks up little pieces of the loading noises of computer compatible cassette recorders and scatters them amongst a plucking, chanting beast of a tune. Big, beautiful warm tones on "& our wild paths intersect" as though a Seventies supercomputer was trying to relate to us its delights and plans in excited, childish phrases.


"Fire dream" incendaries with Eighties0Eight noises, hissing again like a sweaty pavement. Long summer holidays, that kind of drill. I'm drawn to the title "Peachy swan"; the tune has black ice skids, acned with gravel and some Fred Astaire breaks gliding across the top. Rolling streams of toothsome yoghurt curdle in and out in "Out the coast" without getting too far. "Ndi bem" is monstrous and cavernous, steely glints on the dense, dark walls. Fibrous, patient noises and the sound of a lid being put on something on "Plurals" and some echoing-down-the-corridor vocal snatches, that you'd get on Burial records. I think I had an idea what they might represent, but I forget now.

I've the feeling this would reward some more listens. Perhaps with insight, perhaps with thrills. Either way, I'm golden.

Rating: Triggers out of Amniotic Soup

*Having just read a short piece on him, I read that he's interested in the psychedelic triggers of various familiar noises within memory and of the massive amounts of information we process every day. So I was merely being even more pretentious than him about it.

No comments: