Czarface & MF Doom - Super What?

Silver Age: 2021

I wouldn't go so far as to say this album had a lot of hype behind it, but boy were music journalists ever eager to talk about it. As the first posthumous record of the late MF Doom, how could folks not want to get their say in? Hell, even Resident Advisor reviewed this record, and they barely touch hip-hop at all! Yeah, some UK grime or avante-garde rap makes their rounds, but Czarface has been unapologetically traditionalist, purely boom-bap brags with liberal amounts of nerdcore references. Mind, I could see RA covering the mythical Madvillainy 2, because everyone wants to cover that one. If the second 'Czar Meets Metal' album is what they have to settle on, so be it.

And you may be thinking I'm a hypocrite because I'm also covering Super What? Yes, though I'm two years late to the table, but that's beside the point. I got this because I'm a Czarface fan, and while I haven't gotten every one of their records, their collaborative ones have been pretty cool – MF Doom being part of the package is just a nice bonus. I realize it's almost hearsay not putting Daniel Dumile above Inspectah Deck, Esoteric, and 7L, and I can only claim ignorance on my part for that. I simply haven't properly dove into Doom's work yet. Some day though, it shall be done. Maybe while 'sportsing'.

Besides, if you think prioritizing Czarface over MF Doom is hearsay, then you'll just love the actual reason I was hype in getting this album, as Del Tha Funkee Homosapien makes an appearance. Long-time readers of this blog know my ultimate 'dream match' rap is one where Del and Deck trade bars over some dope beats, and here it is! Right, the track it happens on, Jason And The Czargonauts, has them separated by two other verses from Eso' and Doom. Nor is there much of a big deal made about him being on said track, coming off like he just happened to be on hand to drop a verse. Still... Doom! Del! Deck! Together at last! (and Esoteric too).

As for the rest of Super What?, it's a rather brief affair, ten tracks long, twenty-six minutes in length, including an instrumental where a pile of interview clips play. The beats boom and bap as with the best of 7L's work, Deck and Doom do their thing as always, and Eso' manages to sneak in some of my favourite out-of-nowhere lines (“Yo, I heard your crew was poppin' shit; I caught 'em and I made 'em cry; Like ads for dog adoption from Sarah McLachlan”).

If you're looking/hoping for a Doom magnum opus that sends him off high, this simply isn't it, because no one involved had any idea this might be his last recordings. Super What? is what it is, another solid outing from the Czar Meets Metal team-up. One that got a lot more attention than folks could have predicted due to events outside their control.

Kinder Atom - Super Nice Hippypants

Hypnotic: 1997

As a fairly dedicated consumer of Hypnotic's CDs for a spell, I crossed paths with Kinder Atom a couple times. The music conglomerate had been active in the Toronto techno and industrial scene for awhile, releasing music under other projects as far back as the '80s. The most prominent member of this group, Heiki Sillaste, also worked in such groups as Digital Poodle, Lazer Caps, and A.S.A. (yes, that's a deep cut) Oh, and they've also worked with Rapoon, on the year 2000 album Rapoon vs. Kinder Atom. Can't say that one's super-high on my 'Must Have' list, but should I ever spot a sweet deal for a copy (re: isn't saddled with ludicrous shipping charges), I may indulge.

Such was the case with this particular double-LP: Super Nice Hippypants. I have to admit, it was far from what I was expecting from Kinder Atom. Oh, not so much the music within, though it too surprised me in other ways. It's just, when you know a techno outfit has ties to experimental ambient and industrial dub, the last thing you'd go looking for in their cover art is something more akin to Japanese electro-pop.

Supposedly this is the logo of the label the group helped set up, Nice+Smooth, also plastered all over the inlay - so a bit of sly marketing on their part. Still, when what you're hearing has more in common with '70s synth weirdness, having something so cutesy as your visual representation probably isn't the best selling point. Like, imagine if Super Nice Hippypants had some vintage Fax+ art instead. I bet this album would be hailed a minor classic! Okay, maybe not, but not so easily dismissed either, I wager.

Anyhow, CD1 is the Supernice album, a seven-track excursion into bleepy electronics, swirly sound effects, and ambient dub. It all has a very Berlin-School feel going for it, spaced-out abstract music that appeals to the retro synth dork in me, some passages getting deep into Tangerine Dream minimalism. Again, had this appeared on a label known for the stuff, like Fax+, I could see it getting more positive attention as the years wore on. On Hypnotic though? Oh man, Kinder Atom's experimental ambient opus never stood a chance, did it?

Fortunately, CD2 Hippy Pants brings some electro boogie (Nipple, One Eleven, Juice Bar) spacey techno (Nikral, titular cut), and trip-hop funk (Phat Pants, June Bug) to the party. They even do a D'n'B in Run In Our Light! Yes, it totally clashes with CD1, such that you wouldn't believe it the same outfit were the two CDs not bundled within the same digipak. Such was the group's manifesto though, never beholden to one particular style. A bit rather like The Future Sound Of London in that regard, though clearly without the obsessive studio polish.

Kinder Atom's first album, Atomika, was more of a blend of their disparate sounds, but if you like your genres distinct and separate, then Super Nice Hippypants may be more up or alley.

Procs - Stuck In The Oven With Me

Trishula Records: 2005

I'd only heard one (1) Procs tune, but hot dang, was it ever a humdinger of a tune! His contribution to the Trishula Records compilation Mechanophobia was quite literally unlike anything I'd heard before – and to be frank, ever since. For sure many forms of weird and warped psy trance have passed my ears over the years, but Big Large Snoring Lamas was on a whole different level of psychedelic twisting. It's like, like... Anyone remember the opening credits sequence of the Beetlejuice cartoon? It was like that, a roller-coaster of fucked-up shit filtered through a Tim Burton / Danny Elfman lense. If his album from the year before had more of that, oh Hell yeah I'd be down to hear more!

For whatever reason though, I skipped on it when I was going through my dark psy phase way back when, and never bothered to keep tabs on any further developments from Mr. Stegman. I assumed it lost to the winds, eventually out-of-print when Trishula folded, the Procs story going with it. That wasn't the case, of course, Mickael sporadically shopping about his alias on a couple other labels, and even recently re-emerging with all his material available on Bandcamp (yay Bandcamp!). That's beside the point though, because on a random whim, I was perusing the old Psyshop shop (just before they shuttered, if you can believe the odds), and discovered they did indeed have Procs' debut album available! Wow, all this time, the original Trishula pressing? Bully on me, then.

I will admit though, a little hesitation in getting Stuck In The Oven With Me, for a rather stupid but understandable reason: I wasn't sure it would deliver what I wanted. One of the factors in my fall-out of mid-'00s psy trance was the annoying pattern of being lured in by really dope tunes as heard on a compilation, and a subsequent album from said producer of such dope tunes never delivering on those expectations. Dark psy was particularly annoying about it, but maybe I simply didn't do enough digging to find out if my batting average was just rather low.

Anyhow, I needn't worry as Procs' debut is fairly solid, even if there's only a few tracks that really gets into that 'Beetlejuice Roller-Coaster' vibe I was looking for (Mr. Baengrot Rides Again, Overtures From The Oven, Buforsk Normal). There's still a delightfully warped sense of sound being employed in most of these tracks, they're just presented in a headier, minimalist way that Trishula Records often showcased. I do like the ones with crunchier rhythms going for them (Gliffsing The Pop, Pogo Pedagog), and Samsonited even gets more melodic than a bunch of weird, twisted sounds and effects flying about.

Still, I was kinda' hoping for more than 'good enough', given how dope Snoring Lamas turned out, but I shouldn't go expecting older tunes to be on par with newer ones, right? Right. So then, about those Bandcamp uploads of later albums...

Sykonee's 'Sportsing' Surveys: PAUL VAN DYK

For a time, Mister Mattias Paul stradled between two worlds within trance's domain, somehow existing at the crossroad between UK progressive elite and Dutch ultra-melodic bombast. It made him one of the scene's most popular producers and DJs, one I even fell sway to in his late '90s / early '00s heyday. As my interests wandered elsewhere, I lost touch with Paul van Dyk's output, but that didn't mean I hadn't kept tabs. Hell, some of TranceCritic's earliest internet infamy involved his projects! Still, his career trajectory didn't seem to be one I wanted to follow, so let him be.

Then he had his near-fatal stage accident, which I can't say personally shook me or anything, but did 'reconnect' me after a fashion, as shortly after, I heard he'd 'reconnected' with trance music as well. Well that's interesting, thought I, but was I really that curious to hear such a comeback? Not initially, but every so often, I'd replay some of his old music from 45 RPM and Seven Ways, leaving me to wonder, did I do myself a disservice in dismissing so much of his discography? Like, I hadn't heard Out There And Back since it came out, and never even gave Reflections a chance. Hmm, albums both new and old I should be checking out? Sounds like a prime candidate for a 'sportsing survey' to me!





















Looking back on this, I'm surprised how many times I name-dropped ATB. Is it because I did a survey of him as well, so he's just the freshest in my mind in referencing popular eurotrance producers? Maybe, though I noticed the Wonky Angle dude was making similar comparisons too. Not to mention Paul and Andre seemed to occupy the same space within DJMag's poll, no matter how high or low they placed. Methinks the two Germans should collaborate. I'm serious!

As for who's next, I'm going back to a poll on Mastodon before deciding. I've a good feeling I know who'll win it, but then I was totally wrong in who'd win in the last one. No way I could have predicted Cypress Hill and Paul van Dyk would tie!

Chihei Hatakeyama / Dirk Serries - The Storm Of Silence

Glacial Movements Records: 2016

It's been a spell since I last talked up Chihei Hatakeyama, and not for a lack of desire. He's simply one of those ambient artists that has hardly any filter, a discography that keeps ballooning to ever greater proportions with each year. It's been six cycles since I first reviewed an item of his (holy cow!), and Lord Discogs lists some forty more items added to his catalogue in that time (holy cow!!). Even if I wanted to jump back in at some point, where do I even begin? I only scoped out Above The Desert because it happened to be among Dronarivm's newer releases at the time. Maybe I should do the same with another trusted label, then? Yeah, Glacial Movement Records, you'll do.

Even better though, this particular release is a pairing with another ambient artist I've long wanted to dive into, if not for an even more daunting discography behind him. Dirk Serries is his real name, but many know him as Vidna Obmana, one of the earlier ambient drone artists that leaned into the dark ambient side of things. Once again, it's that industrial background, caustic noise and sonic experiments eventually morphing into music more contemplative and reflective. He's worked with many prominent names of that scene, including Steve Roach, Alio Die, Robert Rich, and Asmus Tietchens. And like many of his brethren, his nearly four decade old discography lists some one-hundred items on Lord Discogs. That's not even getting into his more recent works as Fear Falls Burning, plus another hundred items under his own name. Where does one start with a catalogue so vast, but I repeat myself.

Sadly, this is hardly the best album to glean a comprehensive conclusion on either man's work. Honestly, even a twenty CD box-set would be lacking, but if you were looking for a definitive work from Chihei or Dirk in The Storm Of Silence, this probably isn't it. I mean, it's only four tracks long! How can any forty-year spanning oeuvre be summed in a mere forty-two minutes? For all I know, this is Misters Hatakeyama and Serries just going through the motions, elder ambient statesmen making music for its own sake, to Hell with challenging the genre, or something. Not that I dislike what I hear, oh no! It'll simply be a lo-o-o-ong while before I come to any sort of judgment on their works, is all.

Anyhow, this is a fairly typical collection of droning ambient as I'd expect from the players involved. Well, maybe not so much Glacial Movements, The Storm Of Silence not quite so cold and foreboding as I've heard from the label. Heck, I'd even call opener Kulde 'warm', in that the minimalist synth pads are rather soothing, wrapping you in a comforting embrace. Each subsequent piece, averaging around eleven-minutes each, gradually ramps up dissonant harmonic tones, but never in a confrontational way. And it's over before you realize it, but this wasn't the last time these two paired up, nosiree.

Lucette Bourdin - Stories From The City

Dark Duck Records/Fantasy Enhancing: 2007/2021

Enough of these cosmic adventures, time to get back home, within the warm embrace of concrete towers, endless glow of street lights, and soothing sounds of sheering steel and burning rubber. What, you don't have all that in your city? Pft, then you haven't truly experience proper urban living. There's nothing like wandering one block, the subtle scent of cherry blossom trees wafting in the air, turning a corner, and receiving the odorous whiplash of street-dweller piss. Haha, just kidding. It's actually the mix of plastic and feces coming from a construction site porta-potty you'll come into contact with, at least in the Vancouver neighbourhoods I roam.

Anyhow, another month, another Lucette Bourdin album. This is one of her earlier albums, her second on Dark Duck Records. It also appears to be another one that uses the original artwork as found on the CD release of this, which leaves me wondering how many others I may have missed after all. Don't get me wrong, some are clearly unique between original and Retrospective Box Set (2005 – 2017). It just seems like I've been on a run where that's not the case anymore. Maybe it's just something unique to the 'S' titled albums? Guess we'll find out whenever I get to the few remaining offerings following this one.

Stories From The City is a simple enough concept, capturing moods and tones I'm sure Lucette felt inspired by when travelling abroad within larger metropolitan areas. Thing is, I didn't really get that sense while playing the album. It's the lack of field recordings. I'm so inundated with ambient artists including all manner of urban street sounds that I just naturally assume any composition drawing influence from such settings will have them in abundance, even if ever-so subtly playing them in the background. I'm seventeen CDs deep into her discography now, and if there's one thing I've noticed Ms. Bourdin seldom utilized, it's field recordings. It's just not her lane. Even when it would totally fit the theme of a particular piece, it's used sparingly (seriously, so few caws in Raven's Dream ...just, so few...)

So we have opener Night Sun, a suitably moody little drone piece that gradually ebbs into something more tranquil and charming, plus an additional effect of stuttering sounds in the background. It's a nice piece of evolving ambient, rather typical of Lucette's sound to this point, but does it impart a feeling of being in the city? Not particularly, no. Like, I could imagine some urban-scape visuals or art supporting the dronier pieces like High Noon or City Interlude, but just about any imagery could when it comes to ambient as artfully abstract as Ms. Bourdin's goes.

Don't take this to mean I'm coming away from Stories From The City disappointed or anything. Lucette had found her ambient groove by this point, and this is another pleasant outing of lovely moods and tones. As I said though, at seventeen CDs deep, that's just my base expectation from her now.

Silent Universe - Stellar Winds

Ignis Fatum: 2015

Pavel finally released a new Silent Universe album! Naturally, I'm currently reviewing his first Silent Universe album, released back in 2015. Because if there's anything you can count on with this blog, it's never being timely in covering new releases. Unless you apply some Theory Of Relativity science behind it, I guess.

Like, from a certain vantage point, Stellar Winds is actually brand-spankin' new, and is the only Silent Universe in existence! What vantage point, you ask? Erm, from the Sirius star system's vantage point, I guess. It's only 8.6 light years away, which is just a little further than the distance Stellar Winds would have travelled had it been broadcast in that direction upon its release date. That's either incredibly awesome or mind-meltingly daunting, depending on your stance. Given that we are dealing with a dark ambient album here, I'm gonna' go with the 'reduces one's sense of being to cosmic mush' option.

But yes, having spent the first half of the '10s exploring all manner of frigid wastelands as Ugasanie, Mr. Malyshkin started branching out with side-projects that didn't quite fit that mould. Polterngeist got in on some occult themes, while Silent Universe set its sights among the stars. Or the nothingness between the stars. Or the Lovecraftian horrors that dwell within dead stars. There's potentially a lot of things to explore out there, is what I'm saying, even if it appears to be a whole lotta' nothing getting there.

I think that's what struck me about Stellar Winds, more a sense of journey in this album compared to his latter offerings. That may be a case of dabbling in various aspects of cosmic drone rather than creating a singular mood, but it cannot be denied Pavel's provided a little journey of sorts. Peering Into The Sky is about as neutral a piece of dark ambient drone can be in this context, letting the overhanging black wash upon you, seeing just how deep into the cosmos we really can peer, whether we should or not.

Oh, this doesn't seem so bad. Nebulas And Clusters offers a little harmonic tone for you, letting the grandeur of these massive, parsec-spanning forms gently flow among an unfathomable void. Speaking of, this piece kinda' reminds me of the opening track from The Infinity Coordinates, if a little more minimalist in execution.

That's about the end of 'tranquility' offered by Stellar Winds. Silent Of Stars is a lengthy drone with the pitch slowly lowerering, as though descending into the abyss. And what do we find on the other side? Pure desolation with Zodiacal Light and Terminator, while In The Meteor Shower has us... wait, is this mechanical breathing I hear? Have I been in a stasis pod all this time? Goodness, I never would have thought I'd have feelings of claustrophobia in an album designed to feel open isolation. There's even a trailing bit of melancholic tone towards the end, implying this grand journey has always been within the mind. Seems about right.

36 & zakè - Stasis Sounds For Long-Distance Space Travel

Past Inside The Present: 2020

Another album from Mr. Huddleston with a cosmic theme? Well damn, you already got all my money for that, but what's this? A collaboration with 'zakè'? Oh my, this is a new wrinkle. Indeed, for much of his career, 36 seldom paired up with other producers, perhaps because much of his muse feels rather intimate, inspiration that may get lost when allowing another being into his musical headspace. Just as well, then, that one of his first collaborations comes with one Zack Frizzell, an ambient artist of some note these days. Huh, how important can he be if this is my first crossing of him, eh?

Well, he's released tons of material in but half a decade, plus many more collaborative works with prominent ambient artists (Black Swan, ASC, Warmth, aural imbalance, bvdub, Joachim Spieth... so many more). He's also appeared on many labels, including Headphone Commute and Kompakt – ah, that would explain how even Pitchfork's Philip F'n Sherburne knows about him. Cool and all, but how's his Bandcamp game- oh...! Oh dear. Look at those labels he runs, each available for a mere fifty Canadian dollars. God damn it...

Anyhow, it is on zakè's most prominent label, Past Inside The Present, that we find his pairing with 36. Dennis has been releasing a few such items on PItP in recent years, but as Mr. Frizzell is always up for a project or two, may as well do a little cross-promotional music in the process. And hoo, is this ever a a humdinger of a concept: nothing less than the soothing serenade of sounds as possibly heard in cryosleep during interstellar travel. Truly, pure fantasy, as being in a near-death state shouldn't make any sort of sonics perceivable. So, maybe more like being in a coma, your senses being fed subtle stimuli mimicking daily, Earthly routines such that you don't even notice the passage of time? For sure I've many dreams where it feels like I've lived entire lifespans entirely independent of my real world experiences. Who's to say we couldn't generate such perceptions for lengthy voyages to the stars, maintaining a healthily active brain while keeping the body inert? Ah, the wonderful realm of sci-fi.

Anyhow, this album is essentially three EPs in one. The first portion, subtitled Stage 1- 4, is where the actual collaboration between Dennis and Zack takes place. The second, subtitled Extended Hypersleep Program, is primarily a 36 joint, while the final section, subtitled Reduction, is zakè. Of the three, I find 36's solo section the most interesting, in that it utilizes ample amounts of field recordings, including rainfall and city life. If I was gonna' be put into an interstellar stasis chamber for an ungodly length of time, I think hearing familiar sounds as found on terra firma would be quite soothing indeed – yes, even the grinding of transit bus breaks. Meanwhile, zakè has a twenty-minute drone piece to close us out, a near-perfect lullaby for the final switch-off of the synapses.

Richard Stonefield - Stardust Aventure

AstroPilot Music: 2021

At first I thought I was dealing with another utterly unknown entity. Richard Stonefield has barely any presence on Discogs, this particular album not even submitted despite being nearly two years old now. I kinda' expect that when dealing with some random synthwave artist, but this came out on AstroPilot Music, a label that, while perhaps not among the upper echelons of psy-chill outlets, at least carries AstroPilot's pedigree. That Stardust Adventure would go unnoticed for such a length of time that I had to submit it to Discogs seemed odd indeed.

Fortunately, I dug a little deeper – say, Bandcamp deeper – and found Richard Stonefield is actually Richárd Kőteleki. Now, that name also appears on Richard Stonefield's main page, but provides nary a link to anything else. So deeper into Discogs I dug, and found a bevy of material! Oodles of singles as Ricardo Piedra, a hefty amount of collaborations with Krisztián Horváth as Quasar, and other assorted works released over the past two decades. And here I thought 'Stonefield' was just some plucky new guy with a heck of a sophomore album of prog-psy.

Nitpicks first, then? Sure, let's get those out of the way. Um, the mastering isn't up to snuff compared to, say, Ultimae Records quality? What's it take to get Aes Dana's touch at the console, huh? Okay, that one's totally unfair. I suppose there's a bit of a plastic sheen to everything, not quite as beefy as some of Altar Records' releases could sound, but I shouldn't go comparing the music released on Astropilot's label to the music Astropilot released on other labels, should I?

Besides, this may have more to do with the fact most of his chosen sounds are rather stock, the sort of things I've heard plenty in prog-psy for well over a decade now. Not that it's a deal-breaker for me, as I like these rubbery acid lines, rubbery psy rhythms, and the usual assortment of soaring synths and twee trance melodies. Richard writes prog-psy just as capably as AstroPilot, and I'm all for hearing more of it.

In fact, maybe there's too much of it? Stardust Adventure does offer some variety at the start, opener Arrakis getting in on that psy-dub action, while follow-up Realizer sounds like an attempt at something a little more dubsteppy, just without the 'wub-wubs'. Third track Here I Am rather reminds me of Banco de Gaia at his most sentimental, in a psy-chill sort of way, and laying it on rather thick, what with nearly eleven minutes to do so. Given the prog-psy adventure kicks in right after with the titular cut and lasts until album's end, these three tracks feel a bit out of sorts overall.

Maybe it's because the whole thing lasts ninety-five minutes, and would have likely been left on the b-sides floor had Stardust Adventure been released as a common CD album. What, cut some of the prog-psy tracks instead? But... they're so good!

Spicelab - Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation

Harthouse/Solieb Digital: 1994/2014

The writing was on the wall. Hard acid techno that marked much of Oliver Lieb's early Spicelab work was quickly coming off dated, new sounds and genre cross-pollination emerging within the halls of Harthouse. You could either start dabbling in the more experimental side of techno, or hop on the trance bandwagon gaining momentum about Frankfurt. Well, Lieb already had established an alias for that, called L.S.G., so the experimental side it would be. Like, he'd been pushing that as Spicelab already, at least as far as you could while blistering out the 303 action at 160bpm. Some tracks though, like Quicksand, showed he could do more with the project than sci-fi pulp bosh. Eh, that's just not what the label wants from him? Okay, fine, let's take Spicelab into proper trance territory too.

Thus we have Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation, the in-between EP released during this transition. You can definitely hear stray elements of older Spicelab still lurking, but it's clear ol' Oliver was evolving his sound into the progressive house DJ friendly material as heard in his L.S.G. material (to say nothing about singles from A Day On Our Planet). Changing tides and all that.

Retaining the pulp vibe is opener Pigs In Spice, a nod to the Muppet skit, no doubt. Eh, you say it's actually Pyrospice that's the opener? That can't be right, this Bandcamp remaster I got clearly shows Pigs In Spice as track one, Pyrospice the third. Ah, the original vinyl had them switched around, that's it. Well, I'm gonna' go with how they're sequenced for the re-issue – I assume it's the order Mr. Lieb prefers it.

And right Pigs In Spice should the be opener, Lieb stretching his experimental side much in the same manner as the Quicksand EP. While not so chill as that track went, this one isn't in much hurry to lay the beats out either, letting Oliver's usual array of sci-fi synths, space opera choirs, and bleepy electronics play out. Brisk hi-hats and cymbal crashes seems to impart a sense of urgency in the track, but the soft pitter-patter of the beat never lets Pigs In Spice ratchet up into higher gear. Besides, that's for the titular centre-piece.

Yeah, if you thought Amorph was dope but just a little too boshy for a trance cut, Spice Is A Fulltime Occupation refines everything into peak classic trance perfection. The beats are fast, but not stupidly so. The acid is subtle, serving as the rhythmic propellant the little TB-303 machine always intended it to be. And the synths. My God, the synths! Epic and grand in all the best ways sci-fi pulp ever envisioned.

Pyrospice can only be something of a comedown following that. Well, in vibes, if not in tempo, getting right back to the hyper-fast techno of older Spicelab. Yeah, it's basically more of the hard acid bosh, though a bit more intuitive compared to some of Lieb's other hard acid bosh. It got a synth breakdown, yo'!