Nine Inch Nails - Broken

Nothing Records: 1992

Feels like I've come another full circle, having started this blogging project with an unexpected dive into Nine Inch Nails' discography. Closer, The Downward Spiral, Further Down The Spiral, and Fixed came from a previous owner of those CDs, but I was intrigued enough by Reznor's music to also spring for The Fragile and Ghosts I-IV. Now, as I crawl ever closer to some sort of proper conclusion to this project, I've come to Broken, the last of the big EPs from the band's '90s output. Except The Perfect Drug, but I kinda' already have that since Lab 4 nicked it.

Broken came out at an interesting time in the Nine Inch Nails saga, by which I mean an utterly turbulent, tumultuous test of Trent's resolve. Despite the success of his debut album, Reznor wasn't reaping all the rewards for his efforts. He felt TVT Records was dicking him around (because they were), and was looking for a way out of his contract with them, even going so far as to record new music on the sly under different aliases. It did land him with Interscope Records, and his own Nothing Records, but TVT somehow still had their fingers in the pot (to say nothing of how those label deals turned out later, but that's a discussion for another time). Throw in the killer combo of a world tour that wasn't turning out as they'd hoped, and it's unsurprising that angst-filled thrash vibes were seeping into Trent's sonic palette. Hey, anything to distance themselves from the 'synth-pop' tag TVT so carelessly tossed on them.

The result was Wish, where distorted guitars sound like they're being ground up and chewed back out by the machinery of industry, only to finally unleash their full fury in the chorus (a few 'fuck's thrown in for good measure). Heavy metal industrial was already in existence, but few put as much production detail as Reznor did here, a song remarkably dense for something so primal. Last is more of a standard thrash rocker, while Happiness In Slavery gets thicker in the industrial muck with EBM basslines and digital distortions. Final track Gave Up comes off rather quaint in comparison, muffled for much of its duration, at least until a raucous close-out of shouty, thrashy noise, as if to drive home the point that Nine Inch Nails is anything but a 'synth pop' band.

When Broken first came out, it was followed-up by a mini-EP with extra songs, a gimmick that would carry on with Closer. That was soon changed, second runs of Broken simply adding the tunes to the regular EP, but indexing them as tracks 98-99. Yes, this is one of those CDs, with 90 seconds of silence eaten up by second-long tracks. Hey, if there's fun to be had with the format, have at her. Oh, the songs themselves? Decent hard industrial rockers, but not worth the wait to hear them. Thank god for instant access on computer devices!

Nacht Plank - Broad Tape Band

self-release: 2011

I feel like I've come full circle with this release, which is weird because I wasn't aware of travelling on any particular path. Maybe not so much a circle, but hexagon? A Fibonacci sequence spiral? Some sort of Lee Norris route that had me starting with a Nacht Plank album, and ending on a Nacht Plank album. Not that Alien and Broad Tape Band are the first or last of Lee's projects covered here. Of what I have checked out though, the former was the first of his solo outings, and I'm sure there will be other Norken, Metamatics, or Crowbar Stardust items down the line.

Somehow, I keep being drawn back to Nacht Plank, which is weird because I can't say it's among my favourite of Norris' projects, at least not enough for a full-on deep dive. Really, I only have this and Third Sacraments Council because they were among those Bandcamp giveaways he offered some years back. But hey, I liked that one, so maybe Broad Tape Band will bring something more to enjoy.

Eh? You remember me thinking Broad Tape Band as 'harsh'? Ah yes, I did mention that in the Alien review, after taking a small sampling of sounds. It wasn't hard coming to that conclusion skipping through tracks, eighteen in all. Only a few breach the four-minute mark, while several log in under three minutes. Plenty of space for weird sonic experiments with vintage gear, creating static bursts, sputtering sequencers and atonal drones. Not the most pleasant of noises to sit through, unless you're approaching things from a purely intellectual stance. Or are intimately familiar with the equipment used, and get your vibe on hearing the sounds coerced from them. For sure there are those out there who dig it, I'm just not one of them.

When Lee does let the music breathe a little, there is some nice stuff. I'll grant it's sporadic, and takes until track ten for such a thing to happen (at least for me), but A Plants Day In Stages at least feels like it's going somewhere, less about the abstract experimentation, and painting weird, avant garde minimalist portrait. Elsewhere, whatever 'songs' might have once existed in prior tracks are generally subsumed by glitchy noises or static noise. Only Paoiz hints at a song, but doesn't last long enough to stick in the brain.

But gosh, there's a real gentle melody to hang off on in Field Piano Form. A lovely little thing, piercing the analogue fuzz, occasionally drifting on dubby, metallic rhythms. It rather reminds me of Jam & Spoon's Ancient Dream, itself from their weirdo experimental album, Tripomatic Fairytales 2002, though not to such extremes as heard here. Speaking of 'remembering things', I swear some of the whirring noises in Sirron come from FSOL's Lifeforms, one of the interstitial bits. Or is it Henge I heard it? I dunno, all these whirring bits and transistor bloops kinda' run together after a while on this album.

Massimo Vivona - Breathe

Carpe Sonum Records: 2018

Possibly one of the oddest pieces of cover art in the Carpe Sonum catalogue. Most times, it faithfully captures the general tone or vibe you might expect to hear in one of their CDs, but I'm at a loss in figuring out what they're going for here. There certainly isn't anything that suggests field recordings of Antarctic wildlife, or screaming polar fowl. Did Krackmonster Ink., the graphic artist responsible for Carpe Sonum's cover art, just have this photo lying about, and Massimo Vivona was willing enough to let it be used for his album on here? Or was it a special request from Mr. Vivona himself?

The Italian has had quite the storied career in music, one few are terribly familiar with. He started out in Frankfurt making their brand of trance as John Sferos, but never got much attention. After a brief flirtation with Fax+ as Elevator, he found some modest success for the rest of the '90s making acid techno (of an Emmanual Top flavour) under various guises like Kinetico, Luke Cage, and OJ Project. Not the most exciting of musical journeys, but that one lone acid record on Pete Namlook's print landed Mr. Vivona a spot on the indispensable, necessitous tribute box-set Die Welt Ist Klang. That got Massimo chummy enough with the Carpe Sonum crew to have a brand new album commissioned from him, his first proper LP in nearly two decades!

And reading that previous paragraph, you might be wondering what an acid techno chap might have to offer a label primarily focused on the downbeats. Nothing at all, which is why Massimo's gone way back with Breathe, a record drawing influence from the Berlin School of long-form '70s synth noodling. Okay, not that far back, the synths he uses sounding more modern than anything super-vintage. Yet not so modern either, such that there's a bunch of weird glitch noises and whatnot. Nay, right in the fine middle ground you get from a lot of Fax+ alum, where the lines between trance and ambient are nicely blurred as though glanced through nostalgia goggles.

I'd even go so far as to call this stuff 'stripped' trance, everything but the beats present: spacey pads, building arps, subtle melodic leads. Which is what much of Berlin School was in the first place, trance just adding brisk rave rhythms to them. Honestly, a fair bit of Breathe reminds me of the opening portions of a Petar Dundov track, before he lets the techno pulse take over. This is wonderful for the overall vibe of the album, but kinda' has a drawback too.

I keep anticipating these tracks to start soaring, shifting into a higher gear, but they never do, leaving me a bit wanting as each Phase plays out. It's not their fault, Massimo clearly crafting them to be as they are, but my classic trance upbringing trained me otherwise. Maybe if I'd been weened on the '70s more than the '90s, I'd have different expectations?

Various - Breakz & Bass 2

(~): 2003

Track List:
1. Waveform - D-Tox
2. Banco de Gaia - How Much Reality Can You Take? (Jack Dangers Remix)
3. Waveform - Deep Dubz
4. Waveform - The Joint
5. Brainiac - Neuro
6. Polar - Out Of Range
7. MISTiCAL - Spiritual Thing
8. Waveform - Proteus 4
9. Waveform - Drifter
10. Waveform - New Frontier
11. The Youngsters - Slow

So I made a series centred around all the broken beats I'd been AudioGalaxy-ing. Somehow, this second volume survived, while whatever I had featured on the first has completely slipped from my memory, to say nothing of whatever stack of burned CDs I once had unlabeled and tossed in a dusty corner. Looking at this track list, clearly it wasn't a concept with much going for it, but it wasn't my fault. All those breaks and jungle recommendations in the back pages of Muzik Magazine were just so hard to find on the P2P services so many moons ago.

That can't be the whole story though; look at all those Waveform tracks! I must have heard one or two somewhere, and just had to hear more, is that it? Hah, no. I was looking for Waveform Records tracks, and the Mike James project was what happened to turn up with the highest results. I suppose it's a comprehensive summation of his nu-skool breaks side-project, nearly half of his lone album represented here (some obviously pilfered from DJ sets – oh God, that's Hybrid's Kill City coming in on Drifter, isn't it?), plus downright obscure Waveform joints like Proteus 4 and The Joint. Some of it is pretty good for the genre in its infancy, but you can also hear the telling signs of stagnation even this early on, tracks more fascinated with big bass sounds than anything else.

Elsewhere, breaks get extra representation with Brainiac's Neuro, which sounds like it barely missed the cut in the Wipeout: Fusion soundtrack. Also, there's that Jack Dangers rub on a Banco tune again. Hey, I had no idea if I'd ever find a version of it, so you can forgive a little underhanded gathering. Polar and MISTiCAL bring the d'n'b vibes in fine form, so not much else to add there. I'd forgotten Calibre-Intalex-ST Files project went this far back, much less that I'd raided a tune from their Mistical Dub EP

Then there's The Youngsters' Slow, initially the B-side to the Abusive Melody single, then the opening track to their debut Lemonorage album. And here I am using it as a closing track on a 'breaks and bass' compilation. What kind of track even is this? It's quirky for sure, with a hoppity-skippity rhythm and spritely, bubbly synths bouncing along as a backing pad gradually builds the tension. Almost sounds like something that could have come out on old Warp or Rephlex. It doesn't really fit with the overall vibe of this CD, but then isn't your closer supposed to be the last bit of indulgent leftfield music anyway?

Steven Rutter - BrainFog

FireScope: 2018

A significant album for Steve Rutter, in that this was his first full-length under his own name. He'd already tested the waters with the From Me To You EP the year prior, even as B12 records were still being released, but if he didn't want to continue relying on that bit of legacy, it was time to go all in, fully committed to producing as 'Steven Rutter' from here on out. Unless Michael Golding hooked back up with him for some more music. No sense not dusting the B12 moniker off then.

BrainFog would also commit FireScope to the LP format. The label had already put out Morphology's Traveller (a criminally overlooked outing of spacey electro), but for a print primarily making its hay with digital EPs and collector's vinyl (not to mention vinyl-etched novelty CDs), upping the ante with double LPs could be a risky business vent- and they all sell out in an instant. I swear, this hobby sometimes...

So, BrainFog, Steve Rutter's first full-length album (and the first B12 LP since Last Days Of Silence, if you want to get weird about it). I dunno, I'm having a bit of a, erm, brain fog in how to start this one, in that I feel like I'm utterly tapped out of anything fresh to say about Mr. Rutter's brand of stripped-down IDM-leaning techno. I suppose it is more active and involved than the downright minimalist outings he was doing while shopping the B12 brand about other labels, but a good chunk of this album's middle portion seems taken up by sound experiments over bare-bones electro rhythms.

Let me start with where BrainFog shines, when Steve provides a solid techno thump leading the charge. Opener Sleep Gives Freedom mostly works the moody, slow-burn of a track, all about eerie atmosphere, while follow-up Statuesque goes about its business with 808 thuds and a simple synth lead that easily lodges in your head as bleeps and blips dance about. Then it's not until track nine that we get back to the techno, Infinity Engine a nice little trancey number, while Takedown gets its electro robot-groove going with a bassline that's utterly infectious. Damn, do I ever want to hear this one on a massive system, such separation of sound going on here. Final track Hand In Hand's rhythm is more classic Detroitism, but retains the tempo of BrainFog's techno predecessors while keeping mysterious sci-fi feel the rest of the album has.

If anything, that theme is what keeps BrainFog at least an interesting play-through. Yeah, the middle portion has a lot of tracks more interested in sound experiments wrapped around spare IDM rhythms, which keeps with the ol' school Artificial Intelligence ethos. There's also a sense of strange exploration about them though. Like, as though you're navigating through alien caverns, each track some strange, new scenery unseen by human eyes before. Well, except for Squad Free Force. I keep thinking Annie Lennox is about to start singing when that one starts.

The Oak Ridge Boys - Boys Night Out

Cleopatra: 2014

I promise, hand on heart, arm on chest, ulnar on spleen, this is the last of my Oak Ridge Boys coverage. What started out as a work-related inside joke ballooned into something that, somehow, netted me fifteen of this group's releases. It's been a wild ride, one you'd never have convinced me of happening even half a decade ago, much less when I started this blog. We've had some fun along the way (well, I have), but it's time to put this part of EMC's saga to rest.

It's only fitting that we end the journey with one of their strangest releases ever, Boys Night Out. Yes, stranger than transitioning from gospel to country, weirder than having a huge hit about a late-night horror movie host (or horse, as one co-worker quipped, because “giddy-up!”), curiouser than trading in the beard for a mullet, bizarre-er than covering Seven Nation Army. For 70 years since The Oak Ridge Boys (then Quartet) first came into existence, Boys Night Out did something they'd never done before: release a live album.

Yes, as crazy as it sounds, these lads of birch never recorded one of their concerts for purchase. You'd think such an idea was a shoo-in, their live shows long part of their everlasting appeal. Four chaps, each with identifiable personalities, quirks, and voices, free to interact with an audience while the session musicians do their thing in support. Easy money to cash-in on the support of all those fans, but apparently they (specifically Duane Allen, the longest termed member of the group in its lasting incarnation) never got enough support to do the project proper justice. Fair enough, the live album an incredibly hit-or-miss proposition, truly exceptional examples requiring dedicated craftsman in capturing the energy performances unique to the experience of 'being there'. Given the label troubles the Oakies suffered for such a long spell, it's no surprise it'd take all the way until the mid-'10s for something to come out on... Cleopatra?

Wait, THAT Cleopatra Records? The label that got its start releasing imported industrial and goth records? The one that first introduced me to hard German trance way back when, including such charming titles like I'd Rather Get Fucked By A Vibrator? THAT Cleopatra? I know they eventually became a 'whatever they can release' print, but my mind completely folds in on itself trying to make a connection from Trance Europe 2.0 to Boys Night Out. Do the Oakies know their live album is on a print that also hosts a band called Christian Death?

Incomprehensible label association aside, this CD does capture the energy of The Oak Ridge Boys in their element well enough. All the hits of yesteryear are present, their harmonies are recorded full of power, the back-up band performs fine, and the crowd noise is mostly kept to the applause portions between songs. Or they are all quite polite while them Boys sang their jangles. Also, it's a handy 'best of' package for all those youngin's who were wooed in by their cover of Seven Nation Army!

The Oak Ridge Boys - The Boys Are Back

Spring Hill: 2009

Of course the boys are back. The boys will always be back. The Oak Ridge Boys are everlasting. This come-back was, what, their ninth? Tenth? Easy to lose track when they've technically existed since the building of the atom bomb.

This particular comeback has a quirky little tale behind it though. After their '90s were spent floundering about various labels unable to recapture their early '80s commercial success, the Oakies eventually settled in with Spring Hill. Primarily a gospel leaning print, it reconnected the chaps with their church hymn roots, and they spent the better portion of the '00s releasing fresh recordings of them harmonizing about God and Jesus and whatnot. Well, save the 2003 record Colors, a pure patriotic outing with such jangles like American Beauty, This Is America and G.I. Joe And Lillie. Hey, if you were even a little bit country at the time, you were wavin' the stars and stripes for all to see, lest y'all get Dixie Chick'd.

A little later in the '00s, the boys from the ridge of oaks were invited over to Shooter Jennings' studio for a collaboration (he of Waylon Jennings offspring fame), plus a performance out and about town. To everyone shock, 'the kidz' in the crowd were getting down to Elvira, their classic chart topper from days past. Maybe, just possibly, might there be some embers to breathe upon The Oak Ridge Boys' saga, one that could appeal to the youth of today? Like, if it worked for Johnny Cash before he passed, surely it could work for Duane Allen, William Golden, Joe Bonsall, and Richard Sterban.

If they hoped to repeat Cash's contemporary success, however, they needed their own Hurt, a song hip to the alternative crowds. Somehow, The White Stripes' Seven Nation Army was suggested, and thus we have one of the strangest covers to ever grace The Oak Ridge Boys' discography. Did they even know what this song's about? For sure it was popular at sporting events, an anthemic charm to its defiant stomp of a riff, but please don't tell me they thought this was about raising armies to fight against a nation's enemies?

Anyhow, the trick didn't work, The Boys Are Back doing modest success on the country charts (and quite well on the Christian charts) but still not a scratch from their heyday. Guess those weened on Whisky Falls and Ween weren't too keen on sentimental family standards like Mama's Table, or Richard doo-wopping over John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom.

Still, as bizarre as all this sounds, I'm personally thrown for a loop in seeing Neil Young's Beautiful Bluebird covered here. Existing since Rustie's Old Ways period, that song had only been officially released a couple years prior to The Oakies making this album. What prompted them to cover this charming little folky? A respectful nod to Neil's country ties? The fact Young and Waylon went way back? A subtle stand in solidarity after Neil almost got himself Dixie Chick'd following Living With War?

Westside Connection - Bow Down

Priority Records: 1996

Remember a time when this album was one of the biggest rap records around? Listening to it a quarter century on, it seems almost quaint, a relic of a bygone era of gangsta tropes that never transitioned into the next century. Bow Down though, wasn't so much a CD you bought to jam in your headphones/car/bicycle-with-boombox-in-basket, it was a statement. That you were down with flashing the 'W', westsi-i-i-de for life. Yes, even pasty-ass white-bread teenagers living in the hinterlands of Canada. Erm, not that I got this because I felt the need to 'represent' or something. I just liked the beats on here.

There's something utterly primal about the bare-bones g-funk on display in Bow Down, chiefly a simple thudding beat and punctual farty synth piercing the bass. Yet its effect in getting the heads boppin' and the hands waving is astounding, with Ice Cube sounding as fired up as he ever had. Mack 10 and WC, two chaps who had honed their skill with their own projects under the tutelage of Mr. Jackson's extended crew, knew this was a make-or-break chance for them, raising to the challenge with ease.

With that hot opener, you'd think this three-piece had been a tight-knit posse for years, a showing of strength from the West Coast that had been hinting at cracks forming as the '90s wore on. Yeah, 2Pac was one of the biggest names around, but much of Death Row Records was crumbling, all the while Ruthless Records was rudderless without Eazy-E. There were others out there, but things always came back to what the original N.W.A. crew were cooking up, of who'd be the leaders out there.

From the titular opener, Bow Down (the album) doesn't do much to shake the formula up. There are a few call-out tracks (All The Critics In New York, Cross 'Em Out And Put A 'K, the Cypress Hill diss King Of The Hill), and some lady mackin' cuts (Do You Like Criminals?, Westward Ho). Mostly though, it's Cube, Dub-C, and Mack-Daddy bragging about how gangsta they are, and how the West coast is the best coast. Again, hardly revolutionary stuff, but at a concise ten tracks with just enough variety between them, Bow Down never overstays its welcome.

Possibly the most brilliant moment comes mid-album, where The Gangsta, The Killa, And The Dope Dealer samples the opening guitar from Nine Inch Nails' Hurt. All the while WC gives a gang howl into the 'hood, painting an almost Gothic portrait of 'Killa Cali' street life. Gang-banging never sounded so picturesque.

With such a strong opening statement from Westside Connection, surely only future fortunes favored the trio, but their follow-up seven years later failed to capture the same hunger. Ice Cube and Mack 10 were more drawn to Hollywood by that point, while WC never quite broke out with the same level of fame. Still, he seems to have had the most productive album career post-Millennium. Might be worth a listen-in.

Del Tha Funkee Homosapien - Both Sides Of The Brain

Hiero Imperium: 2000

Widely regarded as the kick-off to what would be Phase II of Del's career. Okay, maybe you could point to the Hieroglyphics debut 3rd Eye Vision as the proper kick-off. Come to think of it, didn't his actual Phase II drop with No Need For Alarm? Or would I Wish My Brother George Was Here be pre-Crisis Del? I'm getting too many of these comic book analogies mixed up. Let me backtrack.

Both Sides Of The Brain came out in the year 2000. The following year, Deltron 3030 dropped, Gorillaz right behind. And with 3rd Eye Vision being out just prior, you can say Del'amania was running wild at the turn of the century. All this while being fully independent too, the Hiero crew among the first rap conglomerates to truly take advantage of a blossoming internet, exclusive content only available through their website. The CDs had better distribution than that, but with the advent of file-sharing, Del's newest material made its way across the globe to such a degree even his old label Elektra couldn't have imagined. Like, if they had, they wouldn't have dumped him so unceremoniously in the first place.

For those who were just discovering Del, Both Sides Of The Brain was about as perfect a summation to the chap's approach to hip-hop as they could hope for. Whether being known as among the best of the battle-rappers, or having one of the funniest outlooks on the ridiculousness of his surroundings, this album provides it all. I mean, the second track on here is If You Must, a tune literally about all the stinky people he's had to deal with, and super-catchy to boot. You'll never hear as many different ways of describing foul human odours as on this cut. Oh, and if you're down with the dorky side of Del, there's also Proto Culture, where he and Khoas Unique go on about classic video games. Handy way of getting a good word in for future Tony Hawk consideration.

If You Must aside, the first half mostly has Del spouting off about the rap industry while showing off his Jaw Gymnastics. On the other half, tracks like Style Police, BM's, and Soopa Feen have more fun with their topics. I almost want to put Skull & Crossbones in with that group, but Del seems deadly serious about the perils of drinking and driving on that one.

I could go on and on about all the stuff Del's rapping about, and rightfully so since he's a rap artist, but man, how can I ignore all these dope beats? There's so much going on here too, I could eat up a whole review's worth. Heck, Pet Peeves alone is over seven minutes long, with three totally different segments tying it together. Then you get production from Prince Paul, El-P (fresh off his seminal work with Company Flow), the usual assortment of in-house Hiero cats... All killer, no filler in this seventeen tracker, my friends.

ACE TRACKS: February 2021

It's rather sad that, with clubland being in such dire straits from a global pandemic, the biggest electronic music news to emerge this past month is Daft Punk announcing their end. I mean, that'd be news regardless, but it seems like that was the only non-death news, and from a duo that technically hadn't released an electronic album since... Tron: Legacy? Alive 2007? Gosh, maybe even Human After All, if we want to get real pedantic about it. Yeah, yeah, Random Access Memories has electronic elements to it, but I seem to recall the big hullabaloo marketing over that one was the plethora of non-electronic elements, a return to the roots of disco and soul, when multiple talented musicians performed, production not so computer controlled.

I admit, it took me until their break-up to actually listen to that album in full (I'll likely never bother with Human After All, as general consensus assures me the best bits are heard in superior form on Alive 2007). It was fine, about what I expected, some nice jams while playing but little I want to immediately return to as in Discovery and half of Homework. The only hot-take I have with RAM is it's clearly a dance music record for people who hate club music, hate rave music, and hate festival music. Unless Daft Punk performed it at a festival, that'd be okay.

I suspect that's a major part of so many folks feeling distraught over Daft Punk disbanding. Sure, they may not make anymore music together, but that doesn't mean Bangalter and de Homem-Christo can't carry on making music in other ventures. After hearing so many transcendent stories about the Pyramid Tour though, and some of the biggest cases of FOMO in electronic music history after, I'm sure many were hoping for another tour so they wouldn't feel the FOMO so bad the next time around. But hey, they can always do a Reunion Tour down the line, when other artistic paths prove less profitable. Either that, or shell out a couple limited edition vinyl box sets on Discogs for a few grand apiece.

Anyhow, here are the ACE TRACKS for February 2021:


Full track list here.


MISSING ALBUMS:

Nothing again! Two months in a row now. Boy, maybe I should have done less reviews per month all this time.

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 4%
Percentage Of Rock: 0%
Most “WTF?” Track: The Micronauts - Bleeper (just such a noisy racket)

Wow, this turned out better than I would have thought. Guess it helps that a chunk of this playlist draws from world music throughout, whether underground dub or 'ethno-pop'. The few stray tangents into house, techno or psy-trance make sense as detours from the norm, with uptempo and downbeat tracks spaced out well. Only a couple tunes towards the end feel out of place in flow, but Wicked Style is such a perfect little emphatic capper to everything, it's easily forgiven.