FLuViRuS

Many thanks!

Alva Noto's latest venture into the Xerrox series has finally arrived. This time, the dusty tracks of Vol.1 are shadowed by darkened clouds, and the air has become electrified with higher-voltage static. For instance, track 4 sounds almost as harsh as... See full review

This only happens once in a blue moon, even if the syndrome is prolonged: You get tired of the same pop-trash repeated to death on the radio, you get sick of hearing commercialised dance music in visionless clubs, you want a powerful cleansing agent... See full review

Electro Magnetic Unit is an aptly titled release. Images of sparked static electricity and raw waveforms of power electronics spring to mind while the steel-like bastion of fuzzy, white noise creeps closer and closer to the listener. The approach on... See full review

The original version is a slab of commercial lard that is too bubbly for home but too tacky for the clubs. You know the formula: Set Umbrella-esque-beats-to-swelling-strings-wailing-in-minor-key (oh how beautiful), add a dash of melancholy here and a... See full review

All hail Darkness. Rising as an incarnate of various outfits of big names in Doom at the moment, the unholy trinity of "Burial Chamber Trio" has birthed its first and decidedly diabolical LP. On the first track, Greg & Oren's hypnotic doom-and-gloom... See full review

At first blush, this record sounds old skool, without freshness or surprise. But one day, I woke up, played the toons again, and something clicked: This release is simple, straightforward, and yet commands rigorous attention from hips. You keep... See full review

This fish doesn't suck; it just takes a bit of getting used to. Hearing this stuff, I see demented, psychedelic, flashing, illusory strobe-lights rhythmically blinking to bleeping, acidic, funky, "sawtooth" techno as though the entire joint's trippin'... See full review

I usually turn my nose up at 'techno' artistes incorporating strains of classical music to 4/4 thumps since thinking caps are usually shelved away in those exercises (Orbit, are you listening?). I visualize dead composers turning and retching in their... See full review

The first couple of remixes - from Joey Negro & The Cube Guys - are the highlights of this maxi-single. Elektro is a fantastic, club-oriented house tune with a super-funky bassline and catchy lyrics. MrGee "rap-sings" on vocals, giving it great bounce... See full review

"Mamono" is a worthy and intense study in musical construction and deconstruction. Track 1 sounds like an experiment-gone-wrong: Null's textured sound effects is layered upon Haino's pained, screaming vocals. At the 5'40" mark, the whole track warps... See full review

It is a feat for music artistes to sustain the interest of his audience for even 20 minutes, let alone past the 40th-minute mark. Keiji Haino, the fearless, fearsome, experimental maestro goes the whole way TWICE in an album. Track 1 has cymbals... See full review

After Outwork's explosive track "Elektro" won and deserved ten rounds of rave on dancefloors, they produced a slew of cheesy remixes that spoke nothing of their music-making prowesses. And so Outwork released the aptly titled "Out Of Time", clawing... See full review

Cendre is a slow, moving, impressionistic collaboration of substantial quality between Fennesz and Sakamoto. Fennesz provides the sparse, sometimes-shimmering, sometimes-hazy atmospheric canvas upon which Sakamoto sprinkles his minimalist piano... See full review

Merzbow's Frog+ is a fantasia of electrified frogs, squealing and croaking at perfectly timed positions on some tracks, whilst on others, they leap into the error-filled world of Satanstornade (Masami Akita + Russell Haswell) and churn out vortexes of... See full review

This quirky Bruce Lee single is bloody interesting (pun). Released in 1999, it's still as challenging a listen today, as it was then. Salt City Orchestra's spin on Cups is deep house, disco, ambience, all squeezed into an ultraviolet track that soars... See full review

Merzbow delivers 3 pieces of frentic, pulsating, beat-infused dirty sounds which is nicely remniscent of the (in)famous Merzbeat, and in the form of "tracts". Perhaps not surprisingly, each "tract" is a pun on the word "track", and a region of an... See full review

The album Altar has been released in various formats, but this Japanese release is the most complete and sought after. There are only 1000 copies, all sold out! Featured are great extra tracks: (i) "The Sinking Belle (Black Sheep)", a meltingly... See full review

This release is only valuable for the David Morales Classic Mix of Hyper-ballad, since all other mixes are found on CD 1 of the maxi-single released by One Little Indian (the latter even contains other mixes unavailable on this release). What makes it... See full review

"High Rise" alone makes this release worth getting. Is it happycore? Is it techno? Is it rave? Nevermind. It is unapologetically fun, even if it may sound somewhat tacky at first. It is 9 minutes long, 1.5 minutes of it devoted to a screeching intro... See full review

'You're All Over My Head' is a full-on tech house assault with an electro bassline that descends chromatically. Using quaint 70's-sounding samples as break downs, the grooves kick harder and deeper upon return. 'Evening Standard' may be a favourite of... See full review

Koop is back! Whereas their previous album 'Waltz For Koop' oozes inner-city sophistication and subtlety, 'Koop Islands' goes right for the jugular with less surprises. Think Nicola Conte, two shades more languid. With its irresistible samba / blues... See full review

Jimis 2006 is a rumbling deep house track with Henrik Schwarz's signature written all over it. It glows with trippy, iridescent luminence as electricity pulsates through its deep, dark body. Watch out for the undertow of menace, which will confront... See full review

Fans of "Opera" and "Suzuki", run. With 3 or 4 saving graces, the miasma of dance styles from this CD is bland, tasteless, and at times, revolting. Here's a run through of selected tracks, good and bad:-

Track 1 - Irritating twangs, with an angry... See full review

Using one of the best songs from the album This Is Normal, this maxi-single is well worth every cent. The remixers are famous and the remixes? Top-notch. Francois K and Heller & Farley each give the tune a straight-up house workover, destined for the... See full review