| #550 |
|
2001 |
Perilous 550 Miami label Schematic has a series of exciting new releases out over the next month or two. The first of these, following the excellent Delarosa & Asora album, is the House Of Distinction compilation. House Of Distinction brings together the various label artists, Takeshi Muto, Jeswa, Richard Devine and Phoenecia with new faces and affiliates including Matmos, Mannequin Lung (from Plug Research), Herbert’s Radioboy guise, and Push Button Objects (from Chocolate Industries). Schematic has put out exciting releases since its inception crossing between electro, Miami bass, DSP laptop styles, and aspects of old-style Warp ambient electronics. Following House Of Distinction is a solo album from new signing Otto Von Schirach and a remix collection titled Iroquois Weak. Warp itself has been capitalizing on the success of Schematic by releasing Richard Devine’s Liswitch album in Europe and in the next week or so, the superb Prefuse73 Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives album. Prefuse73, Scott Heron’s hip hop DSP project steers a similar path with hip hop to his other guise as Delarosa & Asora does with elements of post-rock. Snippets of rhymes are chopped ruthlessly into new micro-phrases, beats are snapped into new jerking structures by Heron’s laptop. Unlike, say, the NWA remix project on Tigerbeat which chopped hip hop source material to destroy (or annoy) it, Heron’s cut ups maintain a strong hip hop aesthetic, and like others on the Chocolate Industries/Schematic axis keep closely aligned to local hip hop culture. Another release worth listening to before the latest lame remix from Plump DJs is the new Matmos album put out through Matador. Titled A Chance To Cut Is A Chance To Cure, this is Matmos’ most coherent and accessible release yet. Using sounds sourced from recordings of surgical operations in California, A Chance To Cut follows the remix EP California Rhinoplasty. The liner notes detail the source material for each track – bone drills and skulls, to the sloppy sounds of intestines, plasma and blood – and the tracks utilize these sound sources as textures rather than emphasizing their oddity. Strange almost house tracks emerge from deftly chopped clicks and slops and warm ambience wells up from melodies played on a skull. Not surprisingly their latest project is working with Bjork on her new album.. Stinky Jim is in town this week. The man behind the long running Auckland radio show Stinky Grooves and part of the now defunct Unitone HiFi, Stinky has been a key player in the rise of digital dub in NZ. Now running the Round Trip Mars label and recording with Angus McNaughton as Phase 5, he is out to promote the new Phase 5 album and the excellent downtempo RTM comp, Sideways which features the Submariner, Sola Rosa and Kevvy Kev. NZ has been a cauldron of excellent digidub over the last decade right back to the Nemesis Dub Systems releases of way back in the early 90s through to the frequent visits to Oz from Pitch Black and Salmonella Dub. Catch Jim on 2SER during the week and playing at Frigid on Sunday the 29th. The Phase 5 album and Sideways are distributed by Creative Vibes. Yellow Peril  Goto
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