Hextronica: Electronic Music Hits the Slab
By Aaron Johnston
Let’s face it: every genre of music has a dark side and they all need it. Yes, even the tepid folk genre needs outcasts such as Death In June to piss pessimism over the campfire sing-along (it helps put the "C" back in "contrast"). Now that "electronica" is all the rage, some folks might be wondering what sinister abortions of creation live under the Chemical Brothers’ staircase. Contrary to what your fifteen-year-old son might claim, The Prodigy are not indicative of the dark-half of anything but the shadowy side of a one-hundred dollar bill (or is that an English pound?).
So what kind of cellar-dwelling hooligans are representative of electronica’s dark breed? As usual, we must travel to Europe to find out. The four artists featured here all arrived from diverse backgrounds and two even come from death metal and goth rock pasts. They’re all mutant "drum-n-bass" derivatives and none can justly be described in a mere few paragraphs. While this genre has yet to produce any real superstars, just remember that Witchman, Downpour, Panacea and QUOIT are merely the tip of the meat hook.
WITCHMAN
The debut from this English trip-hop blastard, "Explorimenting Beats," is a squalid mash of napalm breaks, downtempo spills, minor-key classicism, and a deadly hand of wildcard gloom. If you seized Portishead’s instrumental tapes and streamed them through the cracks in Bela Lugosi’s coffin, Witchman would sue for copyright infringement. Like Scorn, a blend of chubby bass, monolithic muzak and grave-digging dub deliver much of the dirty work here. Witchman’s approach as a composer, however, gives listeners more to decipher than Scorn’s minimalism-by-way-of-THC technique. "Explorimenting Beats" challenges the mind and body with cunning twists, haunting flows, and epic choir samples that hover over the music like an angel that levitates above battlefields plucking souls from the dead. Pretty fuckin’ goth, eh?
If a more composed album of slow, building intricacy and epic progressive tumult is your drama of choice, "Explorimenting Beats" is for you. Look for it on Deviant Records. If you’re more into four-on-the-floor, balls-out, bash-your-head-into-a-marble-sink-just-like-in-Man-Bites-Dog aggression (or any other overly-hyphenated-expressions-of-adrenaline), seek the "Shape of Rage" 12" on Leaf.
DOWNPOUR
Some fear that computers will tear us apart (from each other, that is). If so, Downpour’s "Windstorms Broken Microphones" can be translated as one of two aftereffects. Maybe their transitions from fragtastic bullet-proof breakbeats to haunting ambient minimalism are a byproduct of future-shock neurosis? Perhaps the group’s deft delivery of emotional seesaw showcases what can transpire when computers interfere with musical concoction? Then again, this album could simply be the efforts of some kid pissing away a Sunday afternoon with a sampler and a pint of Guinness. Who knows? Isn’t the job of music magazines to glamorize everything?
Anyway, at the heart of Downpour is a strong bond with human emotion as is extolled on tracks such as "Hey Charles Hayward" which ping-pongs from promise to peril in punishing fashion. Unlike most "dark bands," Downpour’s transitions are not cosmetic. They don’t distort everything and bash wildly on keys to convey anger nor do they feign glumness by tickling minor-key ivory on the down slope. They’re definitely not happy, but their honesty in being so makes them a pleasure to hear. Their mesmerizing melodic sense doesn’t mire the mix, either.
"Windstorms Broken Microphones" is available on 12", or on a split CD with David Kristian’s "Ectopic Beat." Kristian is no deadbeat (bad pun), so if exploration is your motive, buy the CD. If you can’t find either, visit Drop Beat Records in Oakland (5417 college Ave.) . Downpour are definitely the stand-out dark jungle/isolationist crossover group at the moment.
PANACEA
Panacea (or "Bubba" as I call him) is destined to become one of those bitter old men that spend every waking hour writing angry letters to the editor of their local newspaper. To ensure that you respect his serious (pretentious) and dower (pretentious) resolve, he plastered almost every page of the sleeve for his debut, "Low Profile Darkness," with pictures of himself! Now I can’t guarantee that Bubba won’t gut your fridge, but his jack-hammer "drumstick-n-bass" style will modify your height just as long as you don’t mind making a pit-stop at KFC along the way. So he’s fat and obviously proud of it. So what! Did he have to insert so many damn pictures? OK, I’ll jettison the personal attacks as they are obvious attempts at diverting your attention away from my own insecurities.
Panacea’s sound is analogous to leaving your crowbar in the dryer (yes, the likeness is uncanny and not just an intentionally "industrial" analogy!). Cheesy house music sounds drench cuts such as "Shiver," but they’re commingled nicely with erratic, headache-inducing distorted drum machine smashes and shrieking sampled scrapes and creaks. Actually, if you sampled a car crash and inserted the sound of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz getting beat down with an aluminum baseball bat, you’d have this entire CD. Admittedly, this is as one-dimensional as it gets and I doubt Panacea could sell us another entire album of it. Still, it’s an inventive, unprecedented record that is likely to spawn numerous knock-off acts and possibly an entire new sub-genre (doom-n-bass?).
Panacea’s label, Force Inc./Chrome, also released a compilation featuring his highness together with Problem Child, Heinrich at Hart and Goner entitled "Position Chrome." This CD is definitely a recommended appetizer.
QUOIT
As with his Scorn material, Mick Harris’ drum-and-bass project, QUOIT, suffers from "Muslimgauze Disease"—an affliction that causes musicians to release seventy-five minute albums entirely rooted in one five-second drum loop. Repetition is the key to hypnosis though, and few records swing the psychiatrist’s pendulum faster than QUOIT’s "Lounge." While Mick’s architectural skills are suspect, his maniacal mastery of deviant psychology provides an interesting cerebral trek into realms of downtrodden, yet frenetic breakbeat music. As the title might suggest, "Lounge" provides insight into what a post-nuclear Vegas Strip might groove to given the right mutations. In today’s reality, QUOIT makes prime kindling for cyborg bongsmiths of any age. This record won’t kick your teeth in, but it might give you the occasional shiver. Look for it under Mick’s own Possible Records imprint.