Tentacle Loot #29 | mimoid: mmxx

It’s been a bit quiet here for some time. So why not tune back in a quite loud manner 😉

For some time now I’ve gained a little more trust in Soundcloud. It remains to be seen whether this will last in the long term and whether Soundcloud will manage to decide at some point whether they want to milk either fans or musicians. But at least the algorithms are still refreshingly blunt.

And it was through them that I came across Mimoid. A Toronto based producer about whom you can guess more than you can find out from his previous output. But one thing can be attested without a doubt: an excessive predilection for acid. And so the usual suspicious number combinations from 303 to 808 gather at a table to document their violent disputes on tape. Which… sure…isn’t a whole new concept by itself, but Mimoid manages to stretch his acid with a good number of his own ingredients. If you listen to Mimoid’s second work DSTD, you might get the impression that someone is striving for some good manners here on mmxx. Largely DJ-friendly tempos and selected ingredients. Something that usually doesn’t always work out well, because a child who tries to play by the rules of adults doesn’t really play in the end. But Mimoid is no ordinary child. He suffers from a severe form of serious brain dancer. His uncanny energy builds up through the constant urge to break out of the usual patterns. The individual elements of each track, from the acid lines, machine rhythms and rave stabs, keep pounding against the limits of the traditional set of rules in order to defy themselves and to let off some steam.

mmxx reveals its strengths in two main challenges. On the one hand, in how he manages to weld his repertoire of tracks together and pastes them properly with grease and dirt. And then there is the groove, which doesn’t just make everything a little more funky or wonky or whatever, but rather ensures that our usual suspicious combination of numbers don’t persist in self-disputes, but rather attack each other properly. The acid lines seem to break apart again and again between stoic and stumbling, only to be whipped back into the pattern by a clap or something at the same time. And in the end there is always only one direction: forward!

Tentacle Loot #28 | ZeckDBH – Complete “Drift”

It’s a well-known mess. Hundreds of hours of session material from several years that want to be sift trough, cut, processed and packed in sensible packages to manifest a small chapter of infinity in the infinite expanse of the Internet. Vodor L Zeck and Die Blutige Hand completed at least one of these chapters now by completing their Drifts series with tape No. 18.

Drifts is braindance music for the subconscious, elevator music composed under the influence of acid. The widely distributed yet balanced ingredients of acid, braindance shuffle, leftfield techno and microtonal soundscapes never aim to offer hits and hooks in their seemingly endless jams. Rather, they are signposts for expanded states of consciousness. Perhaps similar to meditation records from the New Age era. Get them all, toss one into your tape deck at regular ritual intervals, roll up some good ingredients and just drift.

Tentacle Loot #27 | Kapha Selections: Sun Castle / Ke’So [KS04]

At first glance, nothing seems to fit on this 2 track split-tape. A solo piano piece on the A-Side and a 15 minute lofi house jam on the B-Side. And yet it apparently reflects the experimental musical melting pot of this New York collective. I say “apparently” because I couldn’t really find out that much about Kapha Selections, except that they have been releasing split tapes for about a year, which largely reflect the underground culture of their hometown.

A little more obvious is the International Winners Collective, to which this tape is dedicated. They’ve been organizing events and parties in Brooklyn, New York and releasing stuff on Bandcamp for a number of years now. Constantly strolling between art gallery and club without seeming to give a damn about whether they should please one or the other target audience. With a cross-eyed look across the Atlantic, such a concept, of course, brings up prejudices about would-be high culture immediately, which are also shaped by experiences from my own hometown Berlin. However, these can be completely dispelled with the two tracks on this EP alone. Because two things come to the fore here: curiosity and honesty. As different as these two pieces may appear, they are both a sincere invitation to a physical, spiritual experience. Both pieces do not want to be viewed and evaluated from the outside, but rather be experienced. (Sorry that I’m doing exactly the opposite of that at this point 😉 )

For these reasons, however, I will simply save myself from describing or even explaining the two tracks in detail. Instead I close with the realization that this short tape is a wonderful reminder that music is a living part of our confused cities and communities and that we will not be able to transport these experiences into virtual spaces.
And that’s a good thing!

Hold on!

Tentacle Loot #26 | JHM – Exhaustive Portal EP

Whenever peripheral areas in music are explored, whether in terms of speed, complexity or aggressiveness, there is always a critical point. Regardless of whether we are irradiated at a gabba party and crave for a climax that we have long since passed, or if we boastfully exchange our favorite breakcore tracks until the complex rhythm structures hit us as a wave of snare drums. At a certain point we cross the threshold from art to sport. And while some feel right at home in this spot, I personally often balance on that very partition, driven by a mixture of curiosity and skepticism. My own approach to music is just far too emotional and physical to be charmed only by my left brain hemisphere. And so, after this highly subjective process of elimination, in the end there aren’t that many who still manage to convey a physical or emotional message under the flag of hardcore-whatever.

JHM (aka Jens Masimov) is probably a little too smart for that.

In his self-description he describes himself as a multimedia artist working with ritualistic distortion, and his musical mainspring could hardly be better described. Located in a gloomy no-man’s-land somewhere between driving techno and gabba, he doesn’t seem to care too much about whether he could under-challenge some and overwhelm others. Instead, he fearlessly dives into the very core of the ecstatic ritual of contemporary club culture. With stoically hammering, distorted kick drums and tirelessly circulating sequences, he keeps us in a sustained state of physical exhaustion at just around 150bpm, which can ultimately only be maintained by fading out all conscious thought processes. Masimov’s talent finally reveals itself in his ability to maintain this state. And although you intuitively feel overwhelmed at first, he still allows room for improvement and allows the individual elements of his music air to breathe. And so ultimately he leaves us with the last remaining conscious decision, whether we want to swim or run.

Tentacle Loot #25 | Fuewa – Complete Earthworks

Fuewa‘s second-born Complete Earthworks already celebrated its fifth birthday recently. And, given today’s musical attention span, it should probably be in a sub-category of unheard classics. But as much as releases suffer from those brief attention peaks nowadays, I also have the feeling that the ephemeral trends of these days no longer really disappear from the scene, but rather retreat to niches where they are still celebrated and loved. And therefore are worth being mentioned even if they weren’t exactly fresh from the eaves.

In addition, Fuewa has put together a completely timeless album with his still most recent work, which despite all this has received far too little attention. At least if you believe the numbers on Bandcamp, Spotify and elsewhere. And that regardless of the fact, that Fuewa‘s label of choice, Sonic Router, did took the right turn at a time when the word Future Garage was already part of our collective memory and went on towards something … well … I guess more post-future. Once again they deconstructed the well-worn legacy of Dub- and 2-Step, Garage and IDM and explored alternative timelines with great tape releases by Broshuda and Fuewa. But while Broshuda dismantled his drum patterns until he produced more or less ambient from beats, Fuewa‘s strength lies in the discipline of not achieving musical renewal through limitless complexity. As much as his pieces are influenced by the pioneers of Dub, Jungle and IDM, he retains very driving and repetitive structures and thus leans on a sound that at the same time was mainly shaped and released on Livity Sound (above all Kowton‘s Utility), who married UK garage and driving techno in equal measure. And yet one can clearly hear that Fuewa doesn’t only have a club surrounding as the cathedral of its sound in the back of its head, but also us aging home listeners. Therefore he weaves timeless melodies into his earthy sound textures, lets ambient pieces flow in and takes us on a journey across a planet that seemed so familiar to us.

For me personally, Complete Earthworks – along with the already mentioned Utility by Kowton – is one of the most elaborate albums of this very special straightforward form of UK Garage and should therefore be brought to the mind especially of those who haven’t sorted it into their memories yet. Especially since we are slowly but surely facing a wildly gesticulating drum & bass revival.

Tentacle Loot #24 | Titch Thomas

“[…] music for humans and others with formidable frontal cortexes.”

Noviellion (Discogs User)

The Titch Thomas Tape Trax had a constant spot on my hard drive for quite some time, a recurring companion for stimulating my frontal cortex, until the latter finally formulated a comparatively simple thought: Where that comes from, there must be more!

Lo and behold, at Titch’s Bandcamp a Pandorian can is just waiting to be opened with a handful of old IDM spells to be brought to life. If you look over the quickly put together album covers, you come across well-known ingredients from Acid, IDM and Braindance hold together by a very special cement called Talent. Unforgettable melodies twist out of the creaky goo. The rhythm section always acts on the verge of physical feasibility and these acid sequences work hard on prophecies of an approaching Apocalypse.

It’s been a bit quiet since his split EP on the beloved Mindcolormusic label, but his Facebook profile gives some hope for continuation. Until then, I would advise you to throw a few voluntary coins into his Bandcan: Perhaps just one or the other battered 303 has to be replaced to make him continue his journey 😉

Tentacle Loot #23 | Wagawaga – OuterYerO’er

Wagawaga has been a silent companion in my musical metacosmos since the very early days. With his first releases on Acroplane – where I also had my first flying lessons – he absorbed the quintessence of dubstep very early, freed from its bursting clichés and reassembled from a fund of unbridled creativity.

While early albums like JinJaNoonBus still shot from all directions with genre references from Dubstep, Breakcore and Acid, his wobbly sound now seem to spring from a center point. That’s neither good nor bad, because Wagawaga has always been somehow … eh ….. Waga Waga … has always been fun, but it offers a different approach to his world. You may stumble and dissolve, change your physical composition, threaten to give up your body in a literal jungle of bass and swelling drums but finally are caught again with a swing. He utters you the desire to use awareness and control as a crutch and fulfills the unspoken desire to be reborn as a rubber ball. Musically, he puts the complete dubstep manual aside and relies entirely on a breathing carpet of bass and natural field recordings. On this he lets his stumbling jazzy drum patterns swell up and down, weaves in sound effects and mantra-like melodies.
What a wonderful late summer!

Tentacle Loot #22 | Lesinge – Plic Ploc

Okay, I’m getting old… starting to repeat myself. But in the case of Plic Ploc, you can’t repeat yourself often enough. Just as I can’t stop treading the repeat button on my tape deck for this great Acid Waxa tape.

The quirky French man Lesinge had his album debut with Slide Blinders 2017 on Acid Waxa and in a peculiar way his sound spectrum developed parallel to that of his label by laying on quite a bit thicker. Because just as Acid Waxa slowly and skillfully pulled itself out of the LoFi love affair (a bit), Lesinge has also served a lot of butter since his debut. Always with a base dough made from pure organic Acid, of course.

When listening to his debut one always got the feeling that this was an extremely talented rookie. For example, when he lets entire tracks sink into a swamp of effects on the master track and all these YouTube tutorials mentally impose  that taught us that we should never do something like that … still it somehow worked perfectly fine.

With Plic Ploc Lesinge is now delivering a Christmas tree that can barely hold up to all these presents underneath. With generously friendly gestures, he takes us on a journey through (almost) all the playing styles that made us love acid. From funky super hooks on Une Verte Deux Blanches to dystopian Leftfield House on Eruption. From melodic space night jams on Chain to this nervously whipping IDM aggression training a la AFX on Bless.

The whole thing is neither a blueprint nor a retrospective, but simply rounded off extremely neatly. There will certainly be a lot more to be heard in the future. Je ne peux plus attendre!!!

Tentacle Loot #21 | Metadata – TRANS EP

Open your ears and tip your toes for this handy 2-Track-Banger from Metadata!

The Argentine label Infinit Records dropped their third EP into the realsm of Bandcamp in notime. And slowly but steady the musical cornerstones that pull the two labelheads Franco ‘D and Cruz Coronado together emerge. Trippy acid jams, analogue breaks and a balanced preference for classic MPC Downbeats without committing to the 90s all too much – at least not in terms of BPM.

Quite the contrary – Metadata’s TRANS EP (a side project by Cruz Coronado and Lan) raises the pace bar siginificantly. Stubbornly impulsive and yet somehow playful, more drum machine than sample chop, the drum carpet whizzes over the almost 10 minutes. The melody part, meanwhile, jumps happily irradiated alongside. Grinning broadly without noticing how the warning tempo limit signs roll by. It all sounds kind of like Plone at a 90s jungle party, but it’s a fun portion of braindance that warms up for the next group activity.

J’s rolled with fingers crossed 😉

Tentacle Loot #20 | Nicolas Spampinato – 0000 Drama

The Argentine label Guerilla Tunes has woven its very own sound carpet over the last few years. A knitting pattern bursting with colorful joy, and yet permeated with patterns that you have to look at from some distance before you understand them. With a mixture of nature-loving field recordings, interwoven yet friendly rhythm experiments, straight acid house and great artworks they celebrate sonic diversity like hardly any other (musical) island. And yes … it all fits together somehow … thanks to this very fine pinch of Balearic gentleness … just in Argentinian … and straight in your face … know what I’m sayin’?!

Or no…don’t you? Then perhaps Nicolas Spampinato’s 0000 Drama could provide a smooth introduction to this complex unity. His recently released 4 track debut is one of the more accessible releases on Guerilla, which does not mean that they have gone too far off the beaten track here. Because although we are dealing with 4 house tracks, which cling to the lingering 90s nostalgia by rolling along quite funky with a manageable number of elements, all tracks have a personal signature. Nicolas Spampinato appears on this EP as an artist whose personal note nestles in the details. Consistently in the tradition of the old school, somewhere between old Traxxx Records, early LFO tunes and refreshed L.I.E.S records and yet never completely cliché, but always idea first. And so all the musical elements constantly urge to get out of hand to escape the rhythmic bars, but are always reminded of their task just at the right moment: Serve the groove! And that’s good! Because the result is a playful design, a stubborn head soaked in sunlight.

Braindance with a parasol.

Inhalts-Ende

That's the bottom of the sky.

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