A Year of Music

The first time I ever ran across Swarm of the Lotus, I thought they had a really stupid name.

The first time I actually heard Swarm of the Lotus’s When White Becomes Black, I thought it was tune-free noise.

Now I think it’s one of the heaviest, loudest hardcore records I own, with all kinds of tricky riffs buried in the mix and a brutally tight rhythm section. It’s like they took the excruciating crux of Neurosis’s “Locust Star” (probably Neurosis’s most oppressive song) and turned it into an entire album, only noisier, faster and meaner. For sheer raw aggression and out-of-control sonic violence, it gives Converge’s Jane Doe a run for its money. It’s also extremely catchy, but you have to approach it on its own terms, because it takes no prisoners and isn’t really big on providing an easy way in, and the songs are a lot more complex than they seem at first. If you like loud, mean, fast music, though, the time spent with it is well-rewarded. I think of this record as a lost classic.

They did have a really dumb name, though.

Like I promised, I tracked down those two Ganglion records. It wasn’t that tough; I just had to find their MySpace page and then follow that to their Interpunk page. Interpunk’s price schedule for shipping is kind of jacked for small orders, so I hunted around and ended up picking up a few other things (including a Drowningman album I didn’t have, with its requisitely smartassed song titles – one of which, in turn, provided the title for this post). They included a free label sampler, as is their way, but I’m not very hopeful that anything other than the No Trigger song will be any good.

While I was at it, I bought this album I discovered through Mutant Sounds, because I was really enjoying it and the MP3s linked from Mutant Sounds sound like crap. And I grabbed two more Dan Deacon releases, which I may end up regretting (song titles like “Shit Slowly Applied On Cock Parts” do not prefigure happy fun-time easy listening), but I love Spiderman of the Rings, and maybe naming things just isn’t his strong suit: another song is named “ksjfhgljkhertykjlehgskjhkjvhda”. (I bought these three using Amazon’s MP3 store, which is scarily easy to use, in case anyone’s curious.)

Finally, I grabbed these crappily encoded MP3s of Steve Albini recording demos for Fugazi because Cosmo’s description was interesting.

So here’s the newest grist for the mill:

• Dan Deacon: Meetle Mice (Carpark)
• Dan Deacon: Silly Hat vs Egale (sic) Hat (Carpark)
• Fugazi: In on the Kill Taker [Steve Albini demos] (bootleg)
• Ganglion: Of the Deep (self-released)
• Ganglion: As Steel Takes to Flesh (self-released)
• Drowningman: Don’t Push Us When We’re Hot (Thorp)
• Last Perfection: Drawing Conclusions (United Edge)
• Shizzo Flamingos: Years Passed By 83-85 (Fuego)
• Supermachiner: θριαμβος της μεγαλης μηχανης (Undecided)
• v/a: New School Records: Summer Sampler 2007 (New School)

One of the many pleasures of the digital download revolution is that it means that people who like raw, tracky electronic music can get high-quality techno in a portable form without having to jump through hoops to get it. I haven’t ripped my vinyl yet, and may never get around to it, because doing it right is a lot of work. And a huge chunk of that stuff was originally available solely on 12” and 10” records which never made it to the west coast of the US. But who cares, when I can hit Beatport or Bleep and download acres of high-quality MP3s at more or less reasonable prices?

Especially when it’s stuff like Surgeon’s, or a release like East Light? East Light came out in the middle of Surgeon’s most fertile period of the end of the 90s, when he was running two labels (Dynamic Tension and Counterbalance) and putting out material on two others (Soma and the legendary Tresor). Upon first listen, it is a clinically dry collection of tracky dancefloor techno, unrelenting and very mechanically composed. All four tracks are pure percussion workouts, and this is precisely where their most appealing qualities lie: while they sound unremittingly electronic, almost all these tracks are made from carefully chosen samples of real percussion instruments, orchestrated into a smoothly ticking orrery.

Because these tracks were, after all, intended to be worked into a dancefloor set by a DJ, they don’t have the sophisticated progression and complexity of Surgeon’s dense, sui generis Force+Form, or the easy appeal of records by Model 500 or Underground Resistance, but first listens can be deceptive. I’ve had East Light kicking around my iPod for years, and it continues to grow more interesting and immersive each time I hear it.