Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Holy Shit, Das Racist is awesome. I'll talk more later.

Seriously, smart hip-hop that deconstructs the genre is awesome. I mean the way they play with words is reminiscent of George Carlin. Shut Up Dude is amazing. Talk more later, but they are awesome, go listen.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

The Psychotic Sound of the New Underground

So yeah, new post in what seems like forever. And I'm going to use it to totally wank and talk about the greatest genre you've never heard about(at least in my mind). Breakcore is possibly one of the greatest advances in electronic music ever. It's brought back those frenetic old skool jungle beats, butched up DnB, brought some digital hardcore into the mix, then tossed in some IDM just to fuck with people, and added a dose or two of metal, depending on the artist. And most songs are different from eachother too. Sure some have similarities, but when you look at an album, no two songs are exactly alike. I mean, the albums are usually pretty cohesive in their sound, but each song is pretty unique. For example, the artist Eraplee Noisewall Orchestra has this one album called "The Statement" and every song on it is part of the statement of the album. The statement is one of nihilism and a rejection of mainstream society and all it's trappings(and I just realized that I'm gonna sound like a total intellectual prick from here on out). In his song "Desperation Speaks" he has a rant by an anti-television person, underscored by frantic old skool Jungle beats and touches of balls out metal. Later in the album we have "Animal Groove", which is more standard jungle/breakbeat fare. But it's not without that distinct flair that makes breakcore what it is. It's got these great little drum trills in the background and all these shambling ancillary beats coupled with a slightly glitchy thing hanging around waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay towards the back of the soundscape. But not all of E.N.O's stuff is strictly hardcore jungle/DnB flavored breakcore. "Urban Jungle Victims" has this great mellow groove to it, all the while with a jittery drum line in the back and some glitchy shit going on there too. The centerpiece of this song is a monologue by a woman talking about her idea of an ideal lover. As she says in the song "Imagine such a perfect understanding someone who can reflect your image back to you, something beautiful and pure." The song should by all rights be a mellow song, but there is this constant menace of violence that is brought to bear in the rather dissonant melody, and the implied threat of "Yeah this shit is calm for now, but just you fucking wait, I could fucking wreck your shit right here and now with some balls out hardcore beats right now." "Osho" continues this trend, but it keeps this wonderful jittery drum line all through the song, and the glitches are nigh on constant and are a part of the implied threat. That's something that I really kinda like about ENO's music. You are never truly safe with it, there is always this implied threat that at any moment, shit will go down and he'll whip out some really nasty tracks like his fucking fantastic "Life for Science". "Life for Science" is him at his most brutal in the whole album, with a rather vicious metal attack with a furious blaze of beats behind it, making it all the more...........I dunno, hardcore? I wanna give it more credit than that, but that's all I can really say. Anything else I could say would just make me sound like more of a wanker that I am gonna sound like at the end of this post. Needless to say, I will be posting the song to show you what I mean, hell I might even post the link to his page on Jamendo, where he has all of his shit, for free. Anyway, so yeah, he's fucking awesome, check his shit out. Also he has a more dubstep/mellow album too, called "The Gloomy Side of Noisewall". It's less breakcore, but awesome. So yeah, enough about him. I wanna talk about Igorrr.

Igorrr is a fucking genius. He's like ENO except that whilst ENO gives off a Sour Kraut vibe, Igorrr is a total Mad Frenchman, and being a quarter French, I enjoy that. He's apparently not as breakcore as I thought, some people terming him drill n bass, but fuck that shit, he's a brilliant breakcore artist. His style is a bit different than Eraplee, his samples are more diverse. I'd say that Eraplee's music is kinda like a really fucked up city, whilst Igorrr's is more like a Baroque castle that has been taken over by the doctor from The Human Centipede(except he's French instead of German. And no, I have not seen that movie nor will I ever see it. Fuck that movie, fuck that director. Or better yet, don't. Besides, I wonder what the fuck sorta messed up sex that guy likes to have. ANYWAY, moving right along....). And this doctor invites you in, and instead of fucked up surgeries on people, he's done that thing to songs. Oh and I'm bored now, gonna go swim. Post later.