The Last Defender of Camelot – Roger Zelazny

This 2002 collection of short stories, novellas, and novellettes confusingly bears an identical title to a 1980 collection which also consisted of short stories by the same author. However this more recent collection features different content than that of the 1980 release, except for three pieces which appear in both volumes: “Halfjack”, the titular “Last Defender of Camelot”, and (my personal favorite) “For a Breath I Tarry”. That said, there is enough difference in content between the two collections that one should not be passed over for the other.

Zelazny’s work stood out among that of his peers during science-fiction’s incredibly productive period between 1965 and 1985 by means of a relentlessly emotive perspective through which we must view his stories — in other words, the author realized that his own perspective could not be removed from its position between the story and the reader, and he embraced, rather than attempted to minimize, this reality. Though never sentimental, his writing delves deep into psychological themes including the contrast between the objective-natural and subjective-personal way in which characters respond to situations. In these stories, we are as often invigorated by characters who take matters into their own hands and shape their destinies, as we are horrified by impersonal circumstance that draws characters helplessly toward an inevitable fate.

Due to the nature of the format in which Zelazny has chosen to work, some stories thrust the reader into a narrative without any introductory context, which necessitates our quickly learning to swim to avoid sinking into confusion. This is characteristic of Zelazny; clarity is sometimes downplayed in favor of impact. At times, common English storytelling syntax is altogether discarded. These passages form a continuum of narrative in which subjects disintegrate and are replaced by the raw function of individual words, or small groupings of words, which form concepts only after some more detail is provided for the reader (which usually occurs only a little later into the story).

And here is where Zelazny’s talent comes into focus; ability to economize detail by subjecting us to only the most critical information. We are shown only what we need to be shown in order for his worlds to makes sense, and even then, the worlds do not always make the sense that we desire for them to make! The reality of which he intends to convince us is never diluted, and this fact can be straining on readers not prepared to let their minds flow with this style of minimal (but not minimalist) narrative.

A common theme explored here by Zelazny is the nature of consciousness; both its fragility and robustness. In some versions of his universe, self-awareness creeps virus-like into any system with sufficient recursive information processing functionality. In others, semi-sentient beings struggle to apprehend the reality of emotional reaction that leads to recursive information processing. Either way, it seems as if Zelazny considers the development of consciousness to be a part of a universally natural progression, just as water can be expected to flow to the lowest point it can reach.

For some examples: In one world, a post-human Earth is ruled by a benevolent Skynet-like entity whose plans for a perfectly logical planet are shattered by one particular computer’s desire to understand humanity, which leads him to experiment with illogical activity. In another world, the heroine’s lover is trapped within the confines of a sadistic artificial intelligence that is sustained by a black hole, and she must journey inside this monstrous entity that delights in her suffering. This makes me think of the phrase, “You can’t make this stuff up,” only applied inversely. These are worlds which feel necessarily invented by the human mind; imagination searching for its own boundaries and, in the process, establishing them. Perhaps imagination is limitless but eventually our excursions out of the ordinary will run up against nonsense. Zelazny’s sure guidance takes us to the brink but never leaves the realm of rationally speculative science-fiction.

Other stories are mainly focused on highly imaginative and action-pack quests undertaken by a hero for a noble purpose; not a groundbreaking structure for storytelling but nevertheless a fresh experience. For example, a man’s consciousness is drawn into Japan’s computer network and learns to manipulate electrical impulses in the physical world outside of the machinery. With this power he causes horrifically mutated creatures to materialize in thin air and stalk his still-human ex-lover, attempting to draw her into the world of raw information, and she fights through several of these monsters to find and confront the mad mind trapped in its electronic paradise. Another story has powerful wizards living in the modern world, pitted against one another in a series of intrigues and battles, including a stunning duel that takes place in a volcano.

This then is the power of Zelazny’s literature: He penetrates deep into the potential expressiveness of the medium and generates experiences for us that would not be possible to craft with the restrictions of other materials. Unlike other excellent science-fiction works (such as Ender’s Game, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Dune) from Zelazny’s peers, these stories were never (and probably could not be) effectively translated into the visual realm of film. This is because Zelazny does not bother drawing fine distinctions between mind and matter; in his worlds, both affect one another in such a way that it becomes redundant to suppose that the psychological and the physical are separate causal realms. For this uniquely holistic perspective, as well as for the raw excitement of tense, engaging prose, Zelazny is unmatched.

Studio OST – Scenes 2012-2015

There is something to be said for a good performance. In the same sense that “virtue is its own reward,” a good performance is worth pursuing, even though anyone who agrees with this statement probably has a unique reason for doing so. Realistically, though, it’s a reasonable and broadly applicable statement, because the only other option is mediocrity, which too often fails to satisfy.

Studio OST is a collaboration between Galcher Lustwerk and Alvin Aronson, and they perform well in Scenes 2012-2015. They don’t attempt to craft anything far out of the ordinary; anything that has a chance of being perceived as disagreeable to anyone really paying attention. They play it safe, working skillfully in the box of the downtempo club aesthetic that favors intellectually focused listening. Nothing in Scenes will shock or challenge a music fan. If anything, it is a challenge to contemporary music producers to keep up; despite the arguable advantage of digital workstations, most electronic artists today are pushing out material that is not only incestuously derivative of their own contemporaries but also not very good no matter how you slice it.

Much of primary composer Lustwerk’s sonic signature is easily recognizable — house rhythms made of snaps and thumps that flow together like the pixels making up a bitmap — while Aronson’s creatively sculpted bass patterns give the ear some entertainingly alien shapes to trace. Par for both artists, synth melodies are sparse but still far from minimalist, as they tend to float in and out of the compositions like cloudbursts riding a breeze.

The duo’s preferred palette of timbres — even when the percussion gets a little blurry — calls to mind an urban atmosphere, with the immediate noise of slammed doors and stomping feet complimented by distant engines that fade in and out of perspective without giving away explicit details of their position or purpose. This lack of of unnecessary information lets us relax comfortably, as if experiencing urban bustle from a fixed place that is safe and agreeable. A rock amid the waters.

That said, Scenes 2012-2015 brings nothing new to the techno table. Due to this lack of novelty, the album will likely go largely unnoticed. However, it will engage the listeners who do give it a chance. At best, it will encourage other producers to pick up the gauntlet and push their creativity in terms of sound design and production, since there is no technical excuse for producing anything that sounds less sophisticated than Studio OST’s work. The bar has been set.

Meanwhile, fans of Scenes are encouraged to check into the individual work of Lustwerk and Aronson.

Objekt – Flatland

If you have any friends who are music fans, you’ve probably had a discussion about the degree to which studio polish affects the experience of listening to recorded music. Everyone has a preference: Experience begets tolerance so there is no real paradigm or instruction manual for how much polish is too much. Most will agree, however, that pre- and post-production touch-up can be taken too far, robbing the music of some “soul”.

Essentially this is the difference between an unfiltered tirade and a carefully prepared speech. Both can be effective but are appropriate for different situations. Too much editing diminishes the impact of that spontaneous emotion which gives rise to musical ideas in the first place, making the end product difficult for listeners to identify with in any way other than intellectually — an accusation that can be fairly leveled at much post-techno and experimental electronic music of these days. But when it comes to recorded music, some level of polish is rightly expected, especially in this era in which powerful digital tools are available to musicians regardless of income or experience. This considered, inattentive mixing is inexcusable.

Objekt’s highly animated post-techno avoids this double-edged sword altogether by fusing sound design with composition in such a way that there is no real delineation between the two disciplines. These songs surge with exuberance like the well-tuned engine of a classic automobile, and Objekt is the master mechanic whose love for his craft is evident in the performance. Every sound is meticulously sculpted. All elements, from the warbly ringing synth tones to the gentle scrapes and taps that tie together the punch-smack percussion have been microscopically examined and tweaked accordingly.

Flatland makes an impression immediately thanks to its remarkable aesthetic coherence. Neither digital nor analog characteristics are placed over the other in importance, and as a result the mix is clear but not sterile, textured but distinct. The opening track serves as a sort of intro, made up of crashing chords that warp and burble before fading away without apparent rhyme or reason, subjecting the listener to the impression that everything coming up can be expected to behave as such, without strict adherence to rules or purpose beyond sounding excellent — exhibitionism itself is on exhibition.

The first proper song immediately lets you know that you have indeed entered Objekt’s personal playground and you are more than welcome to have a good time. Each subsequent song is introduced and developed like a memorable character in a skillful work of fiction: They appear in a new setting and you witness raw action unfold. Soon you pick up on the patterns that mark their behavior and personality. As the song wraps up, you’re right there alongside the character, eyes on the same goal, encouraged to cheer them on as an approaching resolution is clarified. This highly personable nature of individual tracks is the most outstanding feature, among many others, of Flatland.

If we “zoom out” from this perspective, it becomes evident that Objekt has sequenced these songs in such a way that the whole album develops a personality and story of its own, on a broad scale and with much greater detail than is permitted in the course of a single track.

This is the album whose potential was hinted toward after Richard D. James’ excursions into through-composed baroque techno failed to turn up anything more interesting than distracting experimentation. Aspects of Jon Hopkin’s more abstract interpretations of house percussion are also present here, but taken to their logical extremes as beats live and breath, morph, merge, disintegrate, and do battle. Objekt is an evolutionary force manifested, having discarded all the tangential and fruitless developments of the last two decades of IDM, staking claim to an empty arena of as-yet-undetermined scale.

Not your dad’s synthwave

Synthwave is one of the more robust and interesting developments to have emerged from the internet-based community of contemporary sub-mainstream digital music (loosely categorized as EDM). Gaining exposure and popularity around 2010 with some appearances in video games and movies, synthwave begins with the basic template of electro, with its tried-and-true combination of pulsating dance beats and synthesized rock-based melody-centric approach to dynamics, and pairs it with an over-the-top aesthetic (necessitated by its digital information-intensive environment) which mirrors a massive social crisis that has sent ripples through nearly every community at every level of the modern world.

Snooping around the internet will turn up the common notion that synthwave’s quick rise and surprising longevity are due to its combination of familiar sound design elements, high-energy feel, and nostalgic appeal, but I’m making the case that this isn’t totally accurate. (Probably this is due to journalists trying to explain a thing that they didn’t understand to people who had never heard of the thing, resulting in the viral development of a popular opinion that is at odds with reality.) Casual association with music fans has shown me that most of the listeners and producers of synthwave are actually between 20 and 30 years of age – not nearly old enough to recall the 1980s with nostalgia. Something else attracts us.

It is true that contemporary synthwave thrives on a “retro” media aesthetic – a sleekly modernized blend of Top Gun, Miami Vice, Ghost in the Shell, and Blade Runner. Neon lights, sports cars, criminal urban underworlds, burgeoning electronic telecommunication networks, and larger-than-life anti-hero personas all contribute to this sexy hybrid image. Some synthwave artist deal with a John Carpenteresque horror atmosphere; some immerse the listener in a mysterious Frank Herbertian world where the line between science and mysticism is blurred; others yet pursue a light-hearted Saturday-morning-cartoon feel complete with Van Halen-tier musical theatrics. The key feature tying them all together is the 1980s proto-cyberpunk action-hero aesthetic.

It is this specific proto-cyberpunk danger- and crime-oriented backdrop that accounts for synthwave’s success, and these themes were never more present in media than during the 1980s. While global telecommunications were being refined and adopted by corporations during this decade, science fiction imagineers considered the most undesirable consequences of this technology and brought us the aforementioned grim stories as well as even darker expositions like Escape From New York and Terminator. All of these stories expounded on this frightening prediction: Humans desire less personal responsibility, so utilize technology to oversee the shaping of their civilization, and eventually the system that humans created to establish utopia turns against them and dystopia results. SF novels like Ender’s Game predicted that eugenics and social class association would become more pronounced than ever, and insinuated that mass public opinion could be shifted by a worldwide network of opinion columns (the utilization of which allowed Ender’s siblings to craft a world government of their own design). The ever-relevant man-against-machine struggle in 2001: A Space Odyssey suggests that artificial intelligence can not be independently trustworthy, as its structure is based off of human thought with all of its erratic idiosyncrasies (which brings to mind the aborted chat-bot experiment called Tay).

Now, the post-1980s generation has watched the corporate-economic optimism of the 1990s fade into the current zeitgeist of vague disassociation, where the subject of malcontentedness is taboo unless it fits with the rapidly-mutating social paradigm. According to the predictive fiction of the 1980s (which we are now sharply aware of via hindsight granted by a massive global media network), personal identity is now established by corporate branding; personal relationships are strained thanks to the widely-available gratification of immersing ourselves in an atmosphere carefully tailored to suit our own ego. Like the hero of Taxi Driver finds out, human interactions are less about sharing and developing ideas and more about selecting from a pre-approved lexicon of corresponding social signals that reveal nothing about the individual’s desires, passions, and fears.

The promise of constant global connectivity — talk to anyone, anytime, anywhere — has led to many of us becoming more withdrawn and less interested in connecting with others. The worst predictions were not entirely off-base: Consumer technology — rather than being outright evil in itself — has revealed a spiritual darkness and antipathy in our fellow humans.

In other words, the dystopic imagery of 1980s fiction is more identifiable than ever. Somewhat strangely, there is very little going on in the mainstream media of movies and novels that relates to this phenomena of ironic personal disconnectedness born from constant social connectivity. This is even more strongly relevant to the 1980s dystopian vision in which most people simply accept the encroaching atmosphere of impersonal fantasy simulations for company (including video games and video entertainment serials) while the world outside steadily succumbs to contamination and disrepair. Naturally those of us that share this perspective are drawn to those dark predictions of decades past, and it’s no surprise that the aesthetic has impacted and been embraced by millions in this generation of 20- to 30-year-olds in the form of synthwave.

For decades punk, hip-hop, and metal have been widely accepted by the mainstream, commodified, and necessarily rendered ineffective at demonstrating any kind of coherent anti-establishment position (by which I mean a position that runs counter to popular opinion but is in line with the zeitgeist – or, in other words, presents an ugly truth). However these ugly truths are still no less present, and to express them artists seek a new aesthetic. This aesthetic cannot be one which is cemented in a historical context and unable to fluidly contour to present developments, meaning most music genres are already unacceptable.

For these reasons I suggest that synthwave may be a movement toward embracing an aesthetic more relevant to our current social instability. Whether it will be successful at actually shifting the zeitgeist in any great way is impossible to foresee; likely it is just one form among a stream of shifting forms that the movement will have to take in its struggle to maintain recognition. But for now, it is easy to be glad for music that feels more identifiable and motivated than what is offered by the industry and sub-mainstream alike; overwhelmingly typical, depressingly inert hybrids of post-rock music that have failed to achieve any relevance or application to life other than social methods of conversation avoidance.

MultiColor – From the Outside

From the Outside is solidly listenable post-techno made up of concrete beats, abstract sample manipulation, and subdued melody that projects intense emotive depth. Due to the downbeat aesthetic, the first impression may be melancholic or even depressive, but the soul of this music is at once more complex and less ambiguous: It is about resting and collecting oneself atop the weight of sorrow after having escaped from beneath it.

Some of the aesthetics in From the Outside emerge from contemporary digital techniques, like time-stretching and bitcrushing obscure snippets of conversation til they are unrecognizable as anything but rhythmic components. This is something I’ve been hearing more often in recent music by artists who work mainly in a digital environment, but MultiColor does not shoehorn these bits into the music in order to appear contemporary. Rather, he uses them to evoke a nostalgic sensation, not so much for an object or experience itself but for the mind state that the listener associates with the sound of distant laughter and chatter of groups of children.

These echoes of audio memory refer to the simple concerns and wide-open mindset of childhood, drawing the listener toward a mental comparison between their current and past selves. But again, MultiColor does not intend to distress us by dredging up outdated optimism and abandoned promises: These evocative vocalizations are sliced, chopped, pitched, and otherwise rendered inorganic, suggesting that memories are related to the present as a digital sample is related to conversation – inherently prone to manipulation that mars its reflection of a former reality. With this in mind the listener need not be distressed as they are encouraged to synthesize the false cheer of skewed memory with the experience of hearing pleasant music right now, rendering the experience agreeable and expanding awareness of personal history, introducing the mind state suitable for more profound personal realizations. Some similar usage of sampling can be heard on Boards of Canada’s Geogaddi and Music Has the Right to Children, though arguably Boards of Canada present nostalgia in relation to the listener in a less demanding way than does MultiColor.

Usage of straightforward percussion in this genre is sometimes indicative of a self-consciously old-school bent but MultiColor’s beats work very differently from what can be expected from post-techno. Here, the space between beats relates the song dynamics more so than the beat itself. If you’ve been following a kick pattern for several bars, then the silence is deafening when it drops out of the music, revealing a slavery to anticipation that is an inescapable human characteristic. The psychological yearning to close these gaps of suspension urges the music onward, and MultiColor is a master of stretching these moments just to the point of unraveling into annoyance before neatly reconstituting the percussion patterns and melody. At these moments, you can almost hear your brain sigh in relief.

For the most part songs are organized in the same way as pop-oriented contemporary jazz and fusion from the likes of Weather Report, though nothing really suggests that MultiColor’s music is influenced by nu-jazz in any way. Songs are usually introduced percussion-first with the low-end taking precedence while other drums and samples patter across the stereo range, digitally atomized and spontaneously arranged into mini-rhythms of their own before being incorporated satisfyingly into a coherent pattern, which becomes the backbone of the song. Deep bass drones and washed-out synth chords establish a theme, and this theme will return again and again until the end of the song. In between these touch-and-go moments, MultiColor plays around with every conceivable aspect of the music, sometimes homing in on one particular sample and twisting it every which way before releasing it, when it falls back into place while the main theme rises again. It could be said that these songs have a central hub from which exploratory experiments are launched. Gracefully, these hubs are robust enough to support some hair-raising landings after MultiColor returns from some seriously far-out flights of fancy.

This work is easy to recommend because it demonstrates an excellent balance between listenability and intensity. Hopefully MultiColor gets recognition from other contemporary digital artists because he is one of the few who is fully utilizing his tools to exploit the potential musicality of blocks of sound that would be totally disparate without some expertly applied imagination.

Both CD and digital versions of the album are available from Tympanik Audio, who carry several interesting releases by experimental electronic artists.

Ceephax – Cro Magnox

Mr. Jenkinson has been cranking out personable and memorable music consistently for well over a decade, but rarely comes along an album that is sort of a black sheep among the boisterous multicolored herd that is his discography. One of the few albums released under the name Ceephax (sans Acid Crew), Cro Magnox attracted my attention specifically due to its relatively subdued approach to atmosphere, and streamlined method of composition.

Aesthetically there is nothing new in Cro Magnox. The familiar 303’s springy, spongey sound prevails over warm thumps and relaxed high-hat and snare patterns. Any casual music fan would probably identify Cro Magnox’ style as techno, but the force that drives these songs is – contrary to the contemporary state of EDM and IDM alike – not effects-based or even rhythmic, but primarily (and sometimes wholly) melodic. Some bits of Natural Spectrum, as well as the tracks Memory Lake and Forest Zone 303, lack much in the way of a danceable beat, sometimes eschewing percussion altogether. That said, there are still a few numbers (like Quincy’s Classic in particular – though even this one has a rhythm-bending quasi-breakdown) that groove hard enough to make a paralytic tap their foot. Regardless of your preference for degree and intensity of body movement during music listening, this album is one that you will want to listen to through headphones, with as little distraction as possible, preferably at night, under the influence of whatever strikes your fancy, and with as little human interference as possible. An album like this deserves that respectful attention, as it will reward you with the chance to let your imagination run completely away with itself.

Cro Magnox’s defining trait is its unique melodic sensibility, which is just familiar enough to be immediately engaging, but slyly insinuates a potential for unexpected encounters. Still recognizably Ceephaxesqe, the melodies are more comprehensive than usual and consistently relate back to their previous forms throughout the course of each song, suggesting that an uncharacteristically patient, development-focused mood may have have overtaken the composer during the writing process. (More like Ceephax Adderal Crew, right?) However this is not to say that songs follow a predictable trajectory – many twists and turns govern their courses, but Ceephax expertly guides us around any confusing, unrelatable missteps.

If you’re familiar with the style of NES-era video game soundtracks from classics like Mega Man and Castlevania, you already have some idea of how these songs go: A simple melodic motif establishes the rhythm as well as the emotive context, and then develops rapidly, renouncing the common pop-dictated schematics based on anticipation of repetition. Each note charges forward, boldly referring only to the notes from which it directly sprang, as if confident that the harmonic landscape will unfold in such a way that its gallivanting may continue apace. Rather than projecting chaos or confusion, these rapid development give the feeling that the songs casually keep pace with the thought process and the very human intuitive sense of the immediate present. The trick of those NES-era video game soundtracks was that songs had to loop back to their beginnings every minute or so due to the memory limitations of the hardware, but Ceephax is free from those limitations and pushes each song to an intuitively reasonable conclusion, tying up the sprawling exploratory threads of harmony with casual expertise.

Tangles of buzzing cable stretched across bleak landscapes… Light-speed tours through inelegantly engineered supercomplex circuitry… this is some of the imagery that the songs in Cro Magnox may conjure. Old Mega Man music is a relevant but not adequately descriptive analog due to its undercurrents of courage and victory: There is also something of the TRON soundtrack here, not so much in the outright weirdness of mismatched tones and false crescendos, but in the convincing premise that the advent of electronics has set our world on a course toward a state that will be too bizarre and coldly precise for the simple, modern folk that we are. But, according to Ceephax, our warm human eyes may find some alien majesty when we peek into its wondrously inverted reality.

I have a suspicion (probably grounded in my essentialist tendencies) that this particular cyber-esoteric melody style developed organically from the respective musicians’ choice of sound-generating elements – in each case, some basic wave-generating sound chip. In the same way that string quartet renditions of popular rock songs always sound impotent and incomplete (not to mention outright terrible), playing Cro Magnox’s music in any way other than Ceephax’s idiom would be disastrous, I’m convinced. That’s why this album is special; its elements are easy-going and identifiable but its delivery is so contingent on the imagination of an individual. It’s hard to find music in which those two aspects are so balanced, let alone complimentary.

Parallel Worlds – Shade

Shade is classified by the sales industry as “ambient”, which is not a useful descriptor due to its multiple meanings. Most of the stuff I hear advertised as ambient is called such because its purpose is to enhance a real-life setting, as if a soundtrack for reality. Other ambient music asserts a setting of its own, meaning that it is just as likely as not to clash with the atmosphere of any given real-life setting. So, that second type of ambient is often better experienced without the distraction of dull day-to-day circumstance. Shade falls into this second category.

The Greek artist who calls himself Parallel Worlds has a sharp ear for separating his synths (which are mostly analog units, as I understand) and impressively juggles four or even more melodic lines while avoiding any confusing overlap. Most of the time the main melody is stripped of high-end frequencies, lending it a buried sound, but none of these parts are obscured, they just leave open a ceiling for higher-range synths to weave their mosaics, Blue Angels-style. Basic percussion patterns are at the forefront of the mix, often made up of dry, crisp, tightly clipped-off thunks and slaps that contrast with the saturated, ringing synths. Occasionally some Autechre-esque assembly-line noises pervade the percussion, giving the impression that the music is almost self-consciously trying to achieve a holistic resilience by blurring the line between melody and rhythm – as if desiring to return to a settled state of indivisibility. To our benefit, it fails to achieve this, but the intent is apparent.

There is a certain lunar quality about Shade – its luminance is a reflection of that which is not directly visible. Its melodies are curved tightly inward, pulled toward an invisible convergence point in the center of themselves but never actually arriving there, only rolling over, unwinding and unfolding in evolving cycles that reference the past iterations of one another. From the first minute of music, a magnetic attraction hovers just beyond the reach of real-time awareness, amidst some ill-defined peripheral realm where raw sensory input is in a constant process of mutating into concrete concepts that can be related to other concepts in the conscious mind. The music is not aggressive in the sense of being obstreperous or confrontational – it does not impose or intrude – but it aggressively seduces the ears and mind at once. Its beckons are warm, but echo sinister implications should these invitations be ignored.

Picture the hero of a cornball action movie, confused and desperate as disaster engulfs his surroundings. A rogue character of dubious trustworthiness stretches their arm toward him and says, “Come with me, if you want to live.” You are that hero and Shade is that rogue.

Frightening Frontiers begins the album with a throbbing bass that lopes along like aged machinery. Stacked notes, fading in and out of sharp definition, stretch out above, like the steps of a shallow staircase raising us up in anticipation of beholding a grand vista. Yet we never quite reach the peak: Instead, the steps continue to appear and we continue to climb, approaching not the top but the realization that this journey is drawing out from within us our expectations of a climax that was never actually guaranteed. Our false ascent reveals the rescission of an imaginary apex. Maybe this is why the frontiers are so frightening; because they move away from us as quickly as we move toward them, illuminating the future at the cost of obscuring the past – a temporal trap that is impossible to escape. The realization strikes at the same time the mysteriously soothing chords make their message clear; this trap need not be frightening, for it is the framework of existence. Life necessitates limits.

Grim dread and pensive joyfulness perpetuate one another – this theme sets the stage for every experience to come throughout the rest of the album. Some songs relate a setting; a looping motif never changes but feels very different by the time the end is reached as it is modified constantly by harmonic progressions. Other songs relate an event. One outstanding example is the emotionally exhaustive Urgency, which begins like a terrifying chase and concludes somewhat ambiguously (using an agonizingly bittersweet chord progression) with either death or safety; we don’t know for sure the actual outcome of the event, only the feeling of peace and resolution.

In these songs, like in myth, the ages and characters may be unique but the narrative arc is immediately identifiable as relating to some veiled aspect of eternal history that fades when we attempt to draw it forth and expose its discreet details under the surgical lights of analysis. Further, we are challenged to accept that the only reality is contingency.

By the album’s closing, a final and more literal epiphany settles on us. ‘Parallel’ is a most apt term for the artist’s name, as Shade’s world of music is indeed parallel to our world of mundane arhythmic cacophony. In the same way that parallel lines never intersect, these worlds – chaotic reality and exquisite music – never merge, but like the geometer overlooking his constructions, imagination allows us to bridge the sublime disparity between these worlds and find a sort of passive reassurance in the consistency of their everlasting disengagement/nearness. We cannot live in the world of limitless beauty but we can know it anyway; that is the gift of Shade.

Though it was released in 2009 and limited to only 1000 copies, the CD album is still available to purchase from DiN Records; sound evidence that human nature is overwhelmingly callous and misguided!

Ghost – Exploding Geometry

Ghost’s idiosyncratic brand of breakcore delves into obscure nooks and crannies of the sonic spectrum and exploits a vast range of tones to generate a broad, almost visual vista. Sharp, tight clicks and ticks direct the mind’s eye toward microscopic clockwork while distant echoes from no obvious source suggest mysterious motion occurring some great distance away. This contrast of perspectives – zoomed-in and intimate versus far-off and indistinct – articulate a world of breadth and communion.

Combining sounds that produce such a wide degree of scale and speed is an impressive accomplishment alone, but Ghost demonstrates the depth of his skill by making sure the timbres compliment rather than clash. Creaks, slides, scrapes, brushes, taps, ripples, wobbles, and plunks all interact symbiotically and enhance the presence of one another rather than grate or confuse by their proximity.

This obsessively detailed sound editing sometimes causes the music to approach an uncanny valley of sorts, where snares and cymbals are portrayed as barely recognizable not just due to being electronically re-sculpted but because of their uncharacteristic placement in the song arrangement, being used as raw indicators of momentum rather than traditional beat markers. Other sounds approximate the resonance of typical wood or metal instruments but are manipulated to such an extent that they also become pure components of structure that reference only the song in which they act as crucial elements.

At times a tightly-reigned synthesizer will make a gracious appearance, providing a sort of as-above-so-below overview of the song. Or, perhaps due to the laser-focus of these brief melodies, they resemble a scrap torn from a larger map, revealing a location in reference to the stuff immediately nearby but leaving the rest of the area unknown until explored. These bits of melody usually serve as landmarks to punctuate movements within a song, suggesting (sometimes misleadingly) their upcoming direction.

Running beneath these micro-motifs are pulsing currents that sweep along like a sudden subterranian flood, not immediately visible but identifiable due to its effects on the ground above. These dynamic shifts go well beyond the simple loud/soft vocabulary of many artists, exhibiting an ebb and swell of rhythmic intensity that sometimes counters, sometimes compliments the melodic component, which frequently anchors the song to our more familiar sense of tonal sequences. In the case of some songs, like the excellent opening track Troublesome Pixie, a short, looping, chiming melody acts as this anchor, unflinching in its responsibility to provide some mental shelter for the listener while the surrounding hurricane of drum breaks skitter and smash together like a blizzard of giant buzzsaws.

In other tracks, like the tension-choked Running With Scissors, the line between melody and rhythm is satisfyingly blurred, as chords played by strings simmer beneath the loping stride of breaks before leaping into the forefront of the song in sharp stabs to claim the rhythm as their own. Then, as always, they recede to give way to the next bit of rhythm or melody, which takes its lead and forges ahead before giving way to something else again. This cycle repeats but, like waves eroding a stony shore, sounds (at least subtly) different every time.

This tidal theme permeates Exploding Geometry, and is even elaborated on vocally with a short spoken poem during the song Butterfly Effect, in which someone (presumably Ghost himself) talks of, “a calm and quiet ocean / one wave amongst the sea / that wave may one day grow / to be a mighty tsunami”. Whether intentionally or not, this verse serves as an efficient description of the concept that underlies the feel of these compositions. Few pieces of music offer this chance to sink and surf at the same time. Succumb to the riptide!

Exploding Geometry is available from Mozyk records (along with some other great glitch/breakcore) as well as Ghost’s bandcamp.

Daed – Fractional Dimension

Each of Texas-based glitch/breakcore artist Daed’s releases since 2012 has demonstrated a huge leap forward in terms of skill with which the creator manipulates his subphysical orchestra. Yet Fractional Dimension shows Daed conducting an intricate and elegant symphony the depth of which has not been heard in any of his prior works.

In terms of production and sound design, the album approaches virtuosity. Each sound possesses its own space in the broad range of noises that each song encompasses. Tones and timbres stand out sharply but are not invasive, neither blending into other frequencies to cause smudgy overtones or exposing a hollowness in the composition. This is not breakcore in the style of Venetian Snares, where the sounds-per-minute ratio is immense and each sound represents its own cell of song information, separated from the other sounds like molecules on a DNA strand. Rather, Fractional Dimension is a fully-developed creature that lives and breaths, the interrelating melodies and beats its bones and bloodflow. The result of all this is a mindfulness and sense of purpose in direction that is too rare in this genre of experimentation and disdain of practical boundaries.

One of the main notions tying the elements of each song together is an aggressive sense of domination that shines through in the muscular flurry of each beat. Melodies are usually made of some slimy, acidic bass that slides and squelches between vicious kicks that drop their roadblock punctuations in places unexpected, but non-negotiable. In between these punctuations, snare samples pop up here and there with some apparent hesitancy, unsure of when they will be ensnared and shredded to confetti to decorate the space in ribbons that form new beat patterns all of their own. All this engenders a sense of sadistic glee pouring out from the composer, and it is easy to imagine him as a mad scientist, underlit by boiling phosphorescence and grinning maniacally as his concoctions pop and sizzle in myriad beakers before him.

It is this masculine characteristic of unyielding forward momentum that raises Fractional Dimension above the crowd of independent experimental IDM producers. Not that this detracts from the quality of the songs themselves; each are of a concise length and never meander. Anyone familiar with Daed’s past work will not find much changed insofar as the structuring of songs, though these have an overall more cohesive feel as one movement in a song is drilled into and expanded upon fully until exhausted, while in the past it was customary for Daed to drop a segment after only a couple of cycles and move on to a complimentary segment. This results in each song being a less jarring experience overall, as the listener is able to sink into the soundscape and let the smooth melodies flow over them as they are buffeted back and forth by the ever-evolving and ever-complex drum patterns. Meanwhile the mastermind of all this strictly organized clamor hovers above the pulsing environment, smiling wickedly with his arms outstretched and his fingers dancing, like a malevolent puppetmaster.

This is an easy recommendation for anyone who enjoys highly driven electronic music with superbly entwined melodic and rhythmic dynamics. A digital version of the album is available from Daed’s official bandcamp page.