Hot off the presses, here comes the most (possibly the only?) DJ friendly Realicide record you will find.  This is definitely something that won’t be to everyone’s taste, but I think it’s a brilliant crossover of raw punk and electronic hardcore.  The message is everything here and Realicide have plenty to say.  But it’s not the cheesy DHR “start the riot motherfuckerzzzzz” kind of message that you might expect.  This is almost more like self help for those disenfranchised with society’s constructions.  Instructions for breaking free, if you will.

Realicide is known, first and foremost, as a live act.  But the translation of their music to a DJ friendly format is actually very well done here.  The sound quality is good, with the gabber kicks hitting nice and hard, and the tracks have been restructured in a way that makes sense for us DJ types and casual listeners alike.  On a basic level, this is pounding, bass laden mid-tempo gabber that will whip the right crowd into a moshing, fist pumping frenzy.  But, perhaps more importantly, the message here is an extremely positive one about not following trends, not sitting passively by, and about actually living life instead of simply watching others do it.  That’s what I take from it anyway, and I think it’s really god damn refreshing to have a record cross my turntable that actually makes me think.

Realicide is a multifaceted venture, and I’d highly recommend checking out their website if you’re looking for some good reading material or more info on what they’re about.

“The Choice Is Yours EP” can be purchased in the U.S. at Wrecked, directly from the label, or at a Realicide show near you.  Overseas, I expect it will pop up at Praxis.

As the dawn of Reality Killed The Video Star breaks, the initial woozy harmonicas and swooning strings of Morning Sun slump out of the once-hollow shell that was at times to Robbie Williams’ career itself like a hefty yolk. It’s become, dishearteningly, painstakingly evident that Britain’s fave pun-addled, glossed-up crooner’s taken the straight-and-narrow. Musically, at least; following the poor sales and even poorer quality electro nonsense of previous car-crash outing Rude Box, Robbie’s entertaining the baying masses of 40-something Take That obsessives willing to put their idols’ differences in the dark and let seduction seep into overload. Unfortunately, these days Robbie’s about as smug as Simon Cowell balancing a dictionary on his repulsively meticulous hair-do, juggling an apple and a banana whilst professing his omnipotence within the British mainstream. In reality, a couple of dilated pupils, a barrel of nerves and a Jedward-infatuated X Factor audience were seemingly culpable for the death of this particular ‘Video Star’ this time around, as the incomprehensible Arabian wails of Bodies fell flat, allowing the likes of Lloyd Daniels and Stacey Solomon to flourish scintillatingly. No mean feat. Lamentably however, Bodies is nigh on the crowning moment of a mire of pseudo-Pet Shop Boys off-cuts (Last Days of Disco), dingy ballads (You Know Me) and hideous guitar pomp stomp last seen lining the walls of Hard Rock Café and the wallets of the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Justin Hawkins (Do You Mind?). The inspirationally-titled Difficult For Weirdos unashamedly features rowdy terrace chants imported from ’98, alongside camp-as-cabaret lazy synth swagger, whilst Starstruck retells the difficulties of the celeb highlife, complete with samples of flashing camera apertures. And that’s about as edgy as it gets here. The nightmarish cliché that has become Mr. Williams in this instance is littered with more confusing wordplay than a Times cryptic crossword (see the grotesque ignorance at the heart of Blasphemy) and lyrically, the cracks show. Where once Robbie entertained, he now flounders haphazardly in a record as stodgy as 12-month old Christmas pudding, had he obviously not wolfed it down prior to his grandiose return. At least it makes Angels out to be the heart-stopper it’s been exclaimed as for the past decade…

Not much to get terribly excited about this time from I:gor and, though I hate to say it, it seems like his productions have been getting a little lazy as of late. A prime example of this is the cheesy sample in the opening track repeatedly declaring “I chose the underground.” Well, yes, that’s kind of a given and the sort of thing that eventually made Rotterdam gabber a laughing stock (Neophyte, etc.). This shit pounds, for sure, but there is a definite formula emerging here and the tracks sound very similar to each other with not much changed but the voice samples. If I had to pick one track that I’d probably play, it would be “God Left This Place” because it has more of a fist pumping peak time vibe to it. More aggression, I guess, which is ultimately what this style of music aims for.

The verdict? Definitely not essential and, to me, a real letdown after the first Nekrolog1k release, which was significantly better.

Going into this one, I expected the DJ Hidden track to be the standout, as many of the Throttler’s tracks that I’ve heard have been a little on the repetitious side and often have an odd bit of off timing in the track that makes them awkward on the DJ side of things.

But I think the Hidden cut falls flat here. The production quality is excellent as always, but this one just sounds like a “Later After” outtake. Too slow for my tastes and, though fairly pounding in some spots, it just doesn’t hit the spot that many of his other productions hit for me. Might be alright as a transitional bit in the mix, but just too samey if you play it too long. But to be fair, with as many tracks as he gets pressed, you can’t expect all of them to be bangers, nor should they be.

Now the Throttler cut on the other hand is a slick, pounding, morphing track that kind of epitomizes this hardcore drum and bass thing that’s been going on for a while now. Deep bass, stuttered repetition and slowly building into gabber flourishes. Dancefloor damage. I’ll definitely be playing this one quite a bit.

No source for this one statside, but The Hard Store ships fast and is fairly affordable.

One look at the artists featured on this EP will tell you that this is a rather ambitious undertaking. Unfortunately, the A side is not something I can recommend. It’s pretty much standard gabber, with the Hellfish track repeatedly dropping a sample of some guy saying something about pissing on you. The Bryan Fury track is a little better, with a swatch of disjointed melody and slightly more imaginative drum programming, but still, in my opinion, a dud.

But the B side is where things really pick up. The DJ Hidden track is very heavy and on the more fractured side of things. Dark, creepy samples, good progression and, overall, yet another mark in the win column for him.

The Somatics track is the black sheep on this record. When played on 33, as I believe is intended, it is like some kind of dark safari through a landscape of twisted electronics. Dubstep tempo, but it’s surely not dubstep. Hard to explain, really, but suffice to say that it’s Somatics in experimental mode, which is generally a very good thing.

Overall, the Hidden and Somatics cuts make this worth purchasing and the gabber stuff is pretty much in the same vein as the stuff that turned me off from Deathchant about five years ago.

No source for this one statside, but The Hard Store ships fast and is fairly affordable.

Ok, so I’m pretty late in getting down to a review on this one, but if there’s anyone out there who is unfamiliar with this track, now you know.

“Reality Collapse” is THE track of 2009, full stop. This is DJ Hidden at his very best, in my opinion, as he combines gabber, hardcore drum and bass and, last but not least, a sublime acid line. Mark N has been caning this one for a long time now and the first time I heard it was when I saw him play. In a set full of amazing moments, the breakdown in this track flat out sucked the air out of the room with the creeping acid line and then the drop blew everything to pieces. Maybe it was the time and place (a sweaty room packed full of heads raised on Midwest acid), but this track has burned itself a cozy little place in my brain. Over a year later and some kind of flashbulb memory takes me back to that room every time I hear it. But my personal experience aside, this track is the real deal and needs to be in your crate. In a word, amazing.

There doesn’t seem to be any place to get this stateside, but The Hard Store has a repress in stock and they have acceptable shipping rates plus a quick turnaround time.

Skream is holly shit , a fabulous dupstep dj and producer from the UK , based in Craydon (London) definitely responsible for dubstep genre’s developement. He released an absolutely fantastic album in 2006 on tempa records.The homonym album is just amazing even if you dont know all of the tracks I bet you know Midnight request line which is one of the most popular tracks of the album. I guess for the music collectors this album is a “must have it in my music library” , for dubstep djs , producers and listeners is education. highly recommended /required. You can listen a track from the album bellow

I don’t know why it took me so long to track down a copy of this little red slab of 8-bit goodness, but better late than never.  Dispyz is an alias of Stagediver who, apparently, did not get the memo that Midwest hardcore is dead.  And thank fucking christ for that because this 7″ and the other one he released this year are exactly what hardcore is all about.  That being, in my opinion, complete disregard for trends and an unbending passion for one’s art.  DIY to the core, and I have massive respect for that.

Similar to the previous 7″, this one is full of darkish 8-bit melodies, bursts of staccato speedcore rhythms and cheeky sampling.  What I really like about these tracks is that high BPM’s are not shied away from, but it’s not speed for the sake of speed either.  There are even a couple of mid-song tempo changes that I can’t wait to incorporate into a mix.

The bottom line?  This is everything you loved about 1998 dragged kicking and screaming into 2009.  And if there was any doubt about it, look out for a future Stagediver 12″ on none other than the mighty Distort label.

Available on 7″ red vinyl or as a high quality digital download, “The Raverblood EP” can be purchased directly on the Radiograffiti website, here.

Gone is the piercing jagged shell that once encased Ayrshire screamster darlings Biffy Clyro, storing them safe away from the sycophantic smoothness of the saccharine-sweet conker that is Radio 1, Goal of the Month backing tracks and the dear old NME; the mainstream. Just as Simon Neil’s estranged locks hit the kitchen tiles around the release of critically-acclaimed cross-over behemoth, Puzzle, a few years back, Biffy have fallen from the tree of post-hardcore insanity, smoothing over their once sharpened, glitchy edges and exposing the vulnerable pop sensibilities that perpetually threatened to seep out from day one, back in the days of Blackened Sky (see Justboy, 57 or Joy.Discovery.Invention for signs of live before Mountains recently erupted).

Only Revolutions, the trio’s fifth attempt, is a quizzical listen. Neil somewhat controversially backs conversing with God in equal measure to Satan in order to “hear both sides” on acoustic lullaby and Machines of the record if you will, God & Satan, which goes some way as to cranking open the wealth of hidden intricacies that lace Only Revolutions. There’s a sense of conflicting interests embedded within, the striving for success set against the experimental tendencies and barking lyrics etched all over Infinity Land; Born On A Horse sets squelching synths against pristine guitar sheens and ludicrous lyricisms (“I pronounce it aluminium cos there’s an I next to the U and M” wouldn’t quite scale the top ten summits of Mountains) whereas the climactically frantic string squeals of That Golden Rule shriek with a neck-jerking urgency entirely absent from the power pop pieces of Puzzle, bar its frenetic opener. Quite whether their arena-conquering glistening alt. rock is the divine or the devilish voice piping up at the back of Neil’s mind is far from conclusive; Cloud Of Stink layers the least harmonious of vocals committed to plastic since The Wave Pictures and falls as flat as a leaky post-op Winehouse, whereas the endearing glinting guitar rays of possible chart-pillager Whorses shine supreme. Bubbles floats majestically to the forefront of the record alongside the swashbuckling stomps of The Captain yet filled with contradictions, Only Revolutions is vastly vapid, as Booooom, Blast & Ruin, Know Your Quarry and Shock Shock make about as much impact as a Leon Jackson convention on a drizzly Monday morning in Scarborough.

Far from their ‘finest hour’ Only Revolutions blends the fruits of Biffy’s past labours into an equal-parts sweet and sour concoction, more puzzling than Puzzle, equally as blissful as the convoluted chaos of Vertigo of Bliss yet far brighter from the darkness of a Blackened Sky, there’s not a whole load of Revolution here. Yet nor is there any sense of resolution, leaving the good ship Biffy to sail deeper into unchartered territories yet over the coming years…

Cavity Job was the first single ever released by Autechre in December 1991 on Hardcore records. I also found it on my music library some days ago , actually I had years to listen to this single as usual with the most of my old music stuff. This single was definitely influental for the early beginning of the electronic scene as well as it was influented by the rave/acid house of that time (late 80s – beggining of 90s) in the UK. It was originally released as a 12″ vinyl record with over of 1000 copies pressed (Side A “Cavity Job” – 6:25 and Side B “Accelera 1 & 2″ – 6:58). I still  love it and for sure I guess it is still available and easy to find. You can find a previous record review of chiastic slide album  by Autechre here

Ever spoiling the party, Dave “2562″ Huismans is perpetually rattling peaceful climes with tribal rhythms and buzzsaw-edged breakbeats. After leading a techno/dubstep hybrid charge on his visionary Channel Two 12″, Aerial LP, and more, the Netherlands-born producer hasn’t yet outgrown his affection for minimal Berlin sounds. Huismans treads more melodic, danceable ground on sophomore full-length Unbalance, dazzling with curt drum edits and rather inventive compositions altogether. Read the rest of what I have to say at Blurt, and check out 2562’s FACT Magazine mix here.

Review by Metal Matt ~ @metalcobra

Baroness – Blue Record (2009)

‘Blue Record’ is one of those albums I was looking forward to without really looking forward to. Having heard and enjoyed 2007’s ‘Red Album’ I knew that Baroness were good but had some room to grow. I knew the next album would most likely kick ass and hoped they would thicken up their sound a little with that magic metal sauce that makes both stereos and my ears very happy (side note: I think, but am not positive, that this sauce is a molten concoction of a James Hetfield guitar pick, one of Geezer Butler’s busted strings, half of a lukewarm PBR and a copy of Aqualung on vinyl, for some reason).

Well? They did. About twenty seconds into ‘The Sweetest Curse’ you know Baroness has made a motherfucker of an album. The sheer girth of shreddage that is ‘A Horse Called Golgotha’ is enough to make a guitar nerd like myself yell ‘YES!!’ at the stereo, provoking odd looks from those nearby. The production of the album, courtesy of John Congleton (an odd choice, he has not done many metal bands), rubs your face right in what ‘Red Album’ lacked sonically. Apparently, Relapse decided to pony up for a bottle of the aforementioned ‘sauce’.

‘Blue Record’ is more than just sharpening the axes, though, listening to ‘Swollen and Halo’ invokes smoky garages and attics where classic rock is still religiously spun on vinyl. Baroness kept all the right parts of their sound intact and expanded on them. Spots of acoustic guitar, plenty of solos, and the album ends just like it starts which is always a good thing. I dig it. Basically what I’m saying is I am so fucking glad someone finally busted out a Rotovibe for a trippy-ass interlude. No idea what I’m talking about? Go spin this album. You can thank me later.

Review by SRG – @seattlerockguy

 Russian Circles – Geneva (2009)

 Sometimes you have to go with your gut feeling when listening to a record. Not only deciding its worth, but also the vision that comes to mind as you are engulfed into a world outside your own even if for only 46 minutes and 1 second of your life. The 46:01 I spent tonight involved me, a pair of fairly descent DJ headphones, and a copy of the new Russian Circles record “Geneva”. Though it has been in my possession for awhile and have listened to it in passing on multiple occasions, this was the first time I’ve sat down with the mindset of really attentively listening.

This sit down conjured the exact same images of the dark labyrinth landscape that had initially came to mind the first time I heard the haunted opening of “Fathom”. Geneva’s blend of eerie effects, pounding drums, rumbling low end, and stout riffage mixed with melodic ambiance brings to mind a vision of the most barren of post-apocalyptic wastelands. The nuclear clearing and fall out of a 3000 years’ war has left the Earth scorched of nourishment. As far as the eye can see are nothing but the most jagged peaks and impassable craters. Few still survive on limited resources, with no hope of ever rebuilding the world as it once was, most only wait to die. The title track is a bird’s eye view of the carnage, a flight over devastation and despair. “Geneva” easily stands out and is the only song on the record that rivals the sludgy riffage and mood of 2008’s Stations’ mammoth title track.

  The addition of Seattleite and These Arms Are Snakes bassist Brian Cook has not only up’d the ante as far as musicianship goes but his ominous rumble creates a thicker than tar back drop throughout the record for Mike Sullivan’s cunning transitions from chugging metal riffs to delicate atmosphere, case in point “Melee” which brings the isolation of this imagined world a glimmer of hope, peering through the black shadow that blinds all chance of a different fate. The added use of strings only hinders the epic climax for a short time, and once again Cook’s bass is brought front foreward, and Sullivan’s haunted and inspired guitar work is exposed for what it is. Carnal. Epic. Devastating. Like most drummers making heavy music today, Dave Turncrantz is the rock. He is indeed an amazing craftsman, and on “Geneva” he delivers a killer performance on each and every track.

“Hexed All” is a lullaby, a peaceful winter slumber complete with keys, strings, and delicate picking. Beautiful. It all comes together on “Malko” though; circular guitar swirls courtesy of Sullivan, Cook’s earthmoving bass, and Turncrantz’s frantic drumming perfectly coexist on probably the most frenetic track on the album; a literal mind blower. “When the Mountain Comes to Muhammad” is enhanced with the sounds of WWII news coverage setting the stage for an eight minute accent into madness complete with horns, and an end time message wall of distortion. “Philos” is a ten minute battle of the senses, and a fitting and doom filled end.

 ”Geneva” is indeed dark in nature, but it is also glorious to behold. It illuminates a bleak and utterly dissonant world, one that not only leans heavily on a sci-fi imagination, but also a potentially all to real prediction of what could come due to worldly matters out of our immediate control. Russian Circles have created some incredible and ethereal soundscapes before, but this record not only tops their two previous efforts (Enter, Stations) but is a release of the highest caliber. It is an epic journey, and certainly one of finest records of 2009.

Anthony Rother as you probably noticed is one of my  favorite electro producers. Originally from Frankfurt/Germany  , owner of the label Datapunk.The “In Electro we trust” released in datapunk /december 2004 , compiled by Antony rother. It remains one of the best electro albums made by Anthony Rother since today. Truly electro is a good thing to trust especially when an interesting artist is taking care of. The in electro we trust is a essential collection of pure electro tracks that you heard many times in parties and so on. It would be great to have it for your archive and music collection. You can find a video of Anthony Rother live here

track list

A week of firsts. I have a lengthy essay about Falty DL’s 2009 output in the November issue of the Brooklyn Rail, an 11-year old progressive politics-, arts-, and culture-focused newspaper based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Grab a massive slice at Anna Maria when you get off at the Bedford Ave. L stop in Williamsburg this weekend, and scoop up an issue of the Brooklyn Rail on your way out the door. If you’ve made a point not to be in the area because you really don’t need to be around for another Yankees parade, check out my piece on NYC producer Falty DL here, and the rest of the issue is available here. Grab Falty’s mix from Sonic Router here.

My first review for Blurt, a lively and diverse online (and sometimes print) magazine from the creators of Harp, ran earlier this week. I wrote about a new record from Syntaks on Ghostly International. You can download their Mistral Moon EP for free here. The surplus of featherweight guitar tones and gentle beats on Syntaks’ debut LP for Ghostly should garner Slowdive references by the truckload. Shoegazer talk fits this Danish duo well, and Ylajali’s long-lingering synths trail on for miles, never disturbing a soul. Read the rest of my Syntaks review at Blurt.

I was listening again yesterday the geogaddi , an album released by Boards of Canada in Warp at 2002. The Scotish duo released probably one of the best albums in the history of electronic music  , at least according my interests. Tracks such as “music is math” and “1969” as well as “A Is to B as B Is to C” and ” Down Chorus” , make this album unique. Actually I ve tried to write an edition with further info  some months ago , concerning Boards of Canada , you can find it here . The title of the album has no conclusive meaning  and it is indisputably the most commercially successfull work by Boards of Canada. A diversity sounds , probably darker than the previous times will satisfy even the most spoiled listeners of this genre.

(Rare Book Room, 2009)

Download Talk Normal – “In A Strangeland”

A couple of years ago I had the extreme displeasure of watching Kill Your Idols, a half-hearted documentary on the influential and avant-garde No Wave music scene of the 1970s. All the film really amounted to was a lot of pathetic posturing about how much better it was “back when the music really meant something, man” (if I never again have to hear Glenn Branca complaining about the apathy and uncreativity of today’s musicians I will consider myself to have led a rewarding and fulfilling life.) The most embarrassing parts, though, featured the shoe-horned, modern “art bands” the director chose to juxtapose the early pioneers with; do Theoretical Girls, Suicide, and James Chance really remind you of Gogol Bordello, A.R.E. Weapons, or (shutter) the Yeah Yeah Yeahs in either sound or ideology? I’d suspect not.

And so I was immediately interested when I started reading about Talk Normal, a duo hailing from Brooklyn, NY that has played with Teenage Jesus and the Jerks, and whose lead vocalist has garnered comparisons both ‘good’ (she sounds like Lydia Lunch!) as well as ’sketchy’ (she sounds like Karen O!).  At best I expected nothing more than an all-female Suicide ripoff, and at worst I thought it would sound like two girls who listened to “Maps” way too often in college. What I got was something a lot more interesting than either of those prospects: a solid noise record that both embraces and transcends its avant-garde sound.

To start: yes, it’s without question a No Wave inspired sound. The droning guitars, the beating bass drum, the piercing feedback– it’s all there, but what sets Sugarland apart is how much more methodical it is than your average noise record. It’s a bit of a misconception that No Wave artists in the seventies were unstructured; the structure of the songs may have been a bit disjointed but there was an underlying framework that pieced them together. What Andrya Ambro (drummer/vocalist) and Sarah Register (guitarist) have done here is bring that framework to the forefront, creating haunting, layered songs in a style known for having no real formula. If anything the duo have gone beyond any preconceived notions of what the genre entails,  succeeding in avoiding many of the tropes that make other, like-sounding bands  seem inaccessible. For example, while the beginning of the opening track, “Hot Song”, may start with the hum of feedback and pounding drums it soon breaks into a wild yet melodic riff. Their cover of Roxy Music’s “In Every Dream Home A Heartache” takes the opposite approach,  starting with a tinge of emotion and a spacey sound that ultimately deconstructs, grinding itself to completion. And “In a Strangeland” (link to download is above) shapes the music around the lyrics, engulfing you in claustrophobic ambience as Ambro self-consciously sings “I’m a stranger/ In a strangeland/ Don’t push me away/ Help me“.

Comparisons are inevitable, as critics more often than not tend to compare female singers to other female singers, as if there’s some big club of girls somewhere who teach each other about music and homogenize their styles so as to be easily placed in one category or another. But comparisons of Andrya Ambro to Karen O. only work if you’re the kind of person who thinks all black people look the same or that the Strokes sound like the Velvet Underground (I’m looking at you on both counts, Spin!). Supporters have called Ms. O’s voice “beautiful”, which I thought meant something good, but I guess really means “shrill and annoying”. Ambro shows almost deceptive emotional range and has a voice that’s more careful than piercing, always picking her spots when it comes to breaking into more raw moments rather than falling back on it like a crutch. She shows that same proficiency on drums, and Register follows suit with her guitar playing– as simple and noisy as it is refined. There really is a lot going on in these songs that you don’t even catch the first time around, despite being just over forty-five minutes long.

To dismiss Sugarland as just another noise record is irresponsible, and to label the band solely as a No Wave throwback isn’t fair. There’s something beneath the surface here that a band like, say, Hella lacks– a darker, deeper edge, maybe. They also wear their influences on their sleeves, while simultaneously not pigeon holing themselves; reinventing a style that at times can sound stale and outdated. But whether you consider it an ode to a lost generation, or an anthem for the next, there’s no denying Talk Normal’s Sugarland is a pretty impressive debut.

-Paul DeBenedetto