CYLOB
Late In The Day
CSR005M
Cylob Industries 2008
06 Tracks. 21mins57secs
Format: Digital

It’s a common criticism labeled at electronic music, that sounds produced by machines sound too clean and inhuman. Often enough, of course, that’s part of the point, but beyond that, one could counter, no machine is perfect. Picking up and exploiting the weaknesses of electronic instruments is a full-fledged phenomenon, be it in circuit bending toy instruments, removing the batteries from a sequencer and using a memory crash to create new sequences, or coding your entire setup from scratch like Chris Jeffs (known on stage and record as Cylob) does. Representing this labor of intense, creative love, Cylob’s music, whether more toward the electro or ambient end of the spectrum, has always retained a unique and imperfect aura.

Late In The Day, the latest EP release from Cylob, is the sound of passively violent degradation. Almost every synthesized sound here is detuned to some extent, while the percussion loops sound perpetually ready to disintegrate into bits. Continue Reading »

THE BLACK DOG
Radio Scarecrow
SOMACD67
Soma Quality Recordings 2008
17 Tracks. 68mins57secs

Since The Black Dog has become a fully functioning tri-headed cell again, it has delivered new and reconditioned material with insistent regularity, sourcing in the beast’s rich past the necessary fuel to move forward and adapt its visionary electronica to a different era through a series of classic EPs and the underrated 2005 Silenced album, while some of the long unavailable back catalogue dating back from the original Black Dog days got dusted off and polished to once again spread their wings and regain their .

Radio Scarecrow is a much more ambitious and confident affair than its predecessor as Ken Downie and brothers Richard and Martin Dust move away from the introvert ambient textures of Silenced and venture into more substantial terrains. Continue Reading »

NEON NEON
Stainless Style
LEX067CD
Lex Records 2008
12 Tracks. 42mins58secs

Boom Bip, AKA Brian Hollon, and Super Furry Animal front man Gruff Rhys team up once again three years after they first collaborated, on Boom Bip’s second album, Blue Eyed In The Red Room. This time round though, they have embarked on a totally different adventure on board their Neon Neon vessel. Partly drawing on SFA’s fuzzy funky pop and Boom Bip’s recent electro incarnation, Neon Neon also encompass eighties Italo disco and power pop with hints of hip-hop here and there for good measure.

Following the pair’s debut single, Trick For Treat, released last year, and the absurdly catchy second offering, Raquel, Stainless Style proves an incredibly eclectic, colourful, sexy and cheesy affair, which, at times, sounds like Prince and new wave diva Cristina frolicking on a marshmallow bed. Stainless Style is based around the life of American car engineer and playboy John DeLorean, who is widely credited for developing the Pontiac GTO and who also worked for Chevrolet before founding the De Lorean Motor Company in 1975. Continue Reading »

MOVE D
Quit Quittin’
UZURI002
Uzuri Recordings 2008
04 Tracks. 27mins12 secs
Format 12″

‘The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.’ So begins Samuel Beckett’s grim and funny book Murphy. And the nothing new is often what the modern listener comes across when they pick their way through the morass of new music pumped into our radios and on to our TV screens on a daily basis. At the same time, it sometimes feels like electronic music, while still a relatively new endeavour, has been playing out on repeat ever since the Detroit legends dropped their first twelve inches in the early eighties. And the same thought comes to mind when listening to this, the second release on the fledgling Uzuri label. Continue Reading »