Wednesday 21 October 2020

Obscurities & Eclectics 1

 Czar

Photo by Jerry Guzman




Czar are a mathematical styled band when I say Mathematical I mean that they fall into a category of bands and musicians that play odd time signatures, constant changing tempos, Dissonance sounds, angular riffs almost to the point of atonality. 

This band fits into the idea of mathcore in the sense that there is no fitting into mathcore as each and every band is outlandish in their own right. 

There is no one playing guitar but a keyboard player using a guitar setting while occasionally triggering samples.

Their bassist plays a style of slap I myself adapted when learning jazz bass 

It’s more of beating your bass strings like an old microwave in your backyard.

Each attack the bass amp thunders out a low rumble that distorts like the shattered glass screen on your now fucked microwave. Occasionally the use of a drum stick against the strings which is all fitting being as at Times the bassist plays to his own tempo creating his own individual rhythm forming a polyrhythmic section before exploding into another mind boggling section of incoherent screaming.

Photo by Jerry Guzman

Not just screaming however. 

The idiophone takes into account softness and loudness 

decrescendo from screaming to a talked word salad even spoken word tone 

crescendoing from spoken back to that point of high tension and screaming. 

Their drummer blasts like a man with Parkinson’s having and seizure never slipping up and coming out of time 

Always on time like a drum machine wrapped in leather wearing a wig, that can pass as a humanoid right? Or something from the film adaption if naked lunch? 



 


Breast milk





BREASTMILK who is BREASTMILK? I can confidently inform you that despite a brief dazed research I have no other information about the artist behind BREASTMILK as side from being an act signed to the intriguing label CHICAGO RESEARCH.

BREASTMILK is a solo female artist creating Erie soundscapes with reverbation of a canyon and a yellowing plastic phone with a humming slow dial tone 

Between each tone is a longer silence 

The drone, oh the drone it tumbled as if it awakens a sense of impending doom within. 

I don’t know who she is but I bet this isn’t her only kind of expression, I want more. 


https://chicagoresearch.bandcamp.com/album/last-rites




Exek


Photo by Pia Hannah





Exek are a band from Melbourne! Yeah fucking Melbourne! I’m no longer losing faith in Australias music scene now as I’ve obviously been sleeping on the resurgence of experimentalist ideas.

drawing influence largely from post-punk, Krautrock and dub sound. this band drowns their sound like a snitch tied to chair and thrown into the ocean in dub production styles, heavy on delay and reverb which creates a haunting atmosphere reminiscent of underground soviet block Brutalism.

If acid was consumed during the listening of this band grey would be the colour but not bland whatsoever but shades that make you want to dive into the feeing of grey and explore. Let the walking bass walk all over you. 

Let the delayed synth decay into the background as your brain decays 

Bit by bit sections fall off like the stages of a Saturn v rocket. 

Their guitarist plays metal neck guitars! 

Creating a more resonating high tone reminiscent of Steve Albini's tone used in the band “Shellac of North America” 





Sounds Of Green From Robotic Hands

3;45am my partner and I have dozed off and let YouTube auto play through it’s algorithm on the tv as we sleep into each other. Suddenly I wa...