Adoption: “Hair”
May 21, 2013
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If you’re looking for an antidote to the sudden influx of pop “noise” music coming out of the laptop underground, the Copenhagen duo known as Adoption has 10 sharp anti-cures that will cut your throat on the way down and hit your gut like its incomprehensible verbal scrawls have something to say. That won’t really help anything, but that’s kind of the idea. Adoption’s music draws on a hardcore, grindcore heritage to create fractured constellations of heavily designed aggression. With each track of Nineteen Ninety coming in hard at an average of 32.1 seconds a piece, the result is a piece of out with a loud, louder, loudest approach and a staying power that outsizes its tiny temporal imprint. So, let’s start you off in the middle at track 5, titled “Hair,” and see how that works out.
Nineteen Ninety is now available from Skrot Up and on Bandcamp
Written by Luke Carrell
Tags: Adoption, Copenhagen, Denmark, noise, Review, Reviews, skrot up
Reviews
São Paulo’s Babe, Terror has created a fresh enigma with College Clash, a complex array of downtempo beats that approach from all directions, stop in mid-air, and fold back into tape hiss without so much as a wave of a wink. The elusive loops of “Tokyo Famicom MVPs” hint at a larger structure that, as with all good conspiracies, might only be there, and if it is, could be completely different from the narrative that seems the most essential. Is it the lizard people or the mole people pulling the strings? The are no firm answers here, other than our suggestion that you experience this music in the moment and avoid attempting to stitch together a composite end result, at least until your 3rd or 4th listen. After that you’re officially a 33rd degree Lizard King and can do whatever you want.
You can stram and download the entirety of College Clash on Bandcamp
Written by Luke Carrell
Tags: babe terror, Brazil, college clash, Reviews, sao paulo
Reviews
It’s rarer than you’d think that a split EP contains two artists who truly complement each other, but Noah x SELA., a collaboration between Nogaya-based singer/producer Noah and nineteen-year-old California beatmaker SELA. does a great job uniting two like-minded voices from disparate corners of the globe. And hey, at International Tapes, that’s basically our bread and butter.
Noah’s contribution to the EP, including standout track “You’ll Come,” shows off the talented Japanese artist’s range as both a producer and vocalist. Using her own voice as a key element to her tracks, Noah mixes subtle piano, southern hip-hop, static loops, and dream-pop melodies, weaving her sonic threads into a delicately gorgeous tapestry of sound. As with her excellent contribution to Cokiyu’s Your Thorn Remixes, the first six tracks on Noah x SELA. offer a comforting entreaty to her pillowy world.
SELA.’s contributions to the EP feel right at home following Noah. While the Vallejo-based artist is probably best known for his production on tumblr-wave rapper Kitty’s D.A.I.S.Y. Rage EP, his work on the second half of the split sees his music tending toward more abstract, less hip-hop oriented compositions. Freed the constraints of beats meant for an MC to ostensibly rap over, SELA. creates ambient compositions whose cavernous, patient aesthetic contains only hints of the codeine haze he brought to D.A.I.S.Y. Rage. Off-kilter, often surprising samples color his tracks with splashes of brightnes and his use of repeated phrasing recalls The Field’s circuitous looping clogged with molasses. Together, both sides offer an immediately pleasing half hour of bedtime-ready soundscapes.
Noah x SELA EP will be released on April 15th via the consistently wonerful flau
Written by Nathan Reese
Tags: Japan, nagoya, noah, Reviews, sela, you'll come
Reviews
The music comes from the middle of America but it aims for the middle of space. Cosmic Fidelity (Lillerne Tapes) is the latest album from Chicago’s Potions and his “one man and a synth” approach to composition is at a peak on this release. The chord clusters and warm fluttering tone whirls make us plain feel good. The final cut is titled “Optimistic Goodbye” and while that could be taken as one spaceman’s death note, we think of it as a big smiley face staring into the clouds before a 2001-esque odyssey. Potions’ music is simple on the surface, but what makes it successful is the dynamics and pacing employed one what could’ve been one dude wanking his keys. Instead we are treated to a real trip into the heavens.
Cosmic Fidelity is now available on cassette and digitally from Lillerne Tapes
Written by Jeff Daily
Tags: lillerne tapes, pop, potions, Reviews, space, synth
Reviews
Over his lengthy career, guitar experimentalist Mike Cooper has made elevating “folk” music to the levels of creativity and freewheeling expressionism that originally propelled the the genre beyond its out of the way roots and the heady cellar cafe circle echo chambers his trademark. It definitely helps that he was around and making that magic happen, in situ. When Cooper applies a similar creative tact to the very embodiment of classic exotica, the Hawaiian guitar, the result is “White Shadows Of The South Seas,” a beautifully shambolic melange that more effectively captures the solar powered crawl of beach life than many of it’s glossed over and out cultural touchpoints. Taken as a semi-sequel up to Cooper’s own Rayon Hula, it’s a satisfying expansion of the dream pop infused exotica of its predecessor. Taken on its own merits, well it’s a big, hazy, semi-super 8 and thoroughly post-colonial world out there, so take it one guitar lick at a time.
White Shadows In The South Seas is now available from Room40
Written by Luke Carrell
Tags: folk, hawaiian guitar, Mike Cooper, oceana, Reviews, Room40, White Shadows In The South Seas
Reviews
‘If two people dream the same dream it ceases to be an illusion.’ -PKD
This video and song might be a good case of that statement. Utilizing the chroma neon t.v. frequencies of the fantastic vid art duo of Vidkidz with their VCR drowning along the beach and analog video mixer driving down the roads of the NES videogame world of Rad Racer; base this high up in a mountain of Colorado and ear churned by the static electricity dripping dub pop of Austin TX based v^v. We have a flavor of ocean drifting, dreaming state of time and space casually reserved in a quiet place among the under-stasis of listening groups for new worlds. File under: Psychedelic awesomeness on the edge of sleep and wild energy. Warning: Does endorse the consumption of LSD and driving a car into another dimension.
You can download v^v’s Orgone Tones on Bandcamp. And here’s a stream of the album, just because
Written by Logan Owlbeemoth
Tags: austin, orgone tones, Reviews, texas, vidkidz, v^v
Reviews
Can electronic pulse-beats be organic? Well no, not really, but they ARE on Moon Wheel’s “The Weather.” The track is from his new eponymous cassette released by Not Not Fun and, easy grooves notwithstanding, it asks a lot of questions. His synth lines approximate clouds, rain, wind, sunlight, people, dirt, phones, earbuds, birds, bugs, etc., etc, but they also stop us (in the midst of good hip wiggling) and ask us to open our eyes to life spinning around our human forms. The “weather” can imply more than nature too, our “social climate” perhaps? Are we mildly blissing out to decent beats while also absorbing political discourse? Are we engaged in the issues of the here and now? Our thoughts start wiggin’ out with the blur of Moon Wheel’s ripples and fuzzed waves. We need to find the good times to spite the bad and enjoy time, second to second, come rain or shine because who knows what’s around the next bend.
Moon Wheel’s self-titled tape will be available soon from Not Not Fun, but for now, you can download it from Boomkat
Written by Jeff Daily
Tags: Germany, Moon Wheel, Reviews, the weather
Reviews
Is it third generation peace, love, and fuzz already? Hippie punk collisions and home bedroom madness are all over the new Free Weed tape. As the name implies, this is good time, we repeat, GOOD TIME music. You could call On the Moon/Get it 2Nite, released on Portugal’s Exo Tapes, a compilation of sorts. Free Weed’s frenzied recording life manifests itself in spools upon spools of tape containing more songs than any bong cowboy knows what to do with. Side A claims production assistance by Unkle Funkle, which is a fact we find amusing and amazing. The beat machine, pop melodies, stoner jokes, and direct line guitar chords make for a listenable and, at times, downright psychedelic experience. Side B collects a variety of songs recorded at different times since the beginning of Free Weed. A little all over the place and a little bit awesome. Free Weed’s music is fun and should only be listened to with that in mind.
On the Moon / Get it 2nite c24 is now available from Exo Tapes
Written by Jeff Daily
Tags: exo tapes, free weed, On the Moon/Get it 2Nite, psychedelic, Reviews, Unkle Funkle
Reviews
“I loooove Diane Keaton<3” is among the only information known about new Japanese project Diane Halls, along with a few YouTube links hinting at a similar interest in Woody Allen (or perhaps just kangaroos). We’re not sure how to connect those scant clues to the project’s debut track “Stolen Kisses,” but it doesn’t matter, because the track makes enough of an impression. It’s a guitar-heavy number where the notes and strings overlap into one lightheaded cloud of sound. Only a minimal beat and some vocals interrupt the woozy guitar party, and the latter only to make “Stolen Kisses” even more unsteady. It bears a resemblance to the music of Hotel Mexico, but whereas that Kyoto band focuses every guitar note towards a destination, Diane Halls is more content to let their music drift around all lovely like. Stay tuned for more stuff from this… and maybe a few more details beyond Annie Hall clips.
Watch for more from Diane Halls on Bandcamp and Soundcloud
Written by Patrick St. Michel
Tags: diane halls, Japan, Reviews, stolen kisses
Reviews
Man made versus nature’s bounty… memory and unknown futures… sometimes music can stop a listener in their tracks, focusing them on the world they exist in for that moment, other times we drift so far back in our skull boxes we don’t know where we’re going. Be Honest’s new album Tea, Sugar, Soda, Soap accomplishes this seemingly at odds past vs. present vs. future for nearly fifty minutes, over two side-long compositions. The expert soundscaping of Ireland’s Be Honest (Ian Maleney) captures both the sounds of the natural world and the deft manipulation of electronics. There’s a commitment to patience in conception and a feeling by the listener that the artist is painting with a skillful hand. According to Maleney’s own, Fallow Records, “The album is based on field recordings collected over the course of a year from the Brosna river basin in Offaly in the Irish midlands. These recordings were then overlaid with a series of improvised guitar playing, experimental instrument triggering and generative synth patches designed to short-circuit preconceived compositional ideas and habitual performance techniques.” We can only say, “well done,” and sit mesmerized by the sinuosity of the vibrations.
Tea, Sugar, Soda, Soap is available for pre-order from Fallow Records
Written by Jeff Daily
Tags: be honest, fallow records, ireland, Reviews, Soap, Soda, Sugar, Tea
