BEATS WORKING / DOMINIC UMILE

Our latest look at dusty instrumental hip-hop, techno and bass includes Martyn (pictured above), HTRK, Walls, I Break Horses, and more.

By Dominic Umile

Disparate nuances and textures meet in a distinctive manner on several recent records that have had me thinking about what music I've been drawn to in 2011 overall. Just as the dour noisepop of Belong's Common Era or Andy Stott's stark, shadowy techno on Passed Me By presents a challenge to categorize other than "I've really been blown away by these," the releases discussed here - their repetition of colorful sonic themes, matched with a fusion of electronics and sampled instruments - aren't easily articulated in conversation. And there are similarly heady, much chatted-about albums on the horizon: M83's Hurry Up, We're Dreaming sees an October release; a "next level" Nathan Fake album is in the can, according to James Holden's interview at ClubbersGuideNewYork.com and Kompakt's catalog of experimental techno grows with albums from Gui Boratto, The Field, and, mentioned below, Walls.

In an unlikely mesh of lo-fidelity production and gripping headphone playback, HTRK (pronounced "hate rock") explores muddled electro/organic noise on Work (Work, Work). Vocalist Jonnie Standish partly talks, partly sings, with both configurations coded in watery delay on this droning, comely Ghostly International release. She's backed with dub-referencing basslines, old drum machine pops, and fraying guitar. The latter fizzes and peters out often, while the space between shitty beat claps on tracks like "Work That Body" grows miles wider by the second. Closer "Body Double" is crowded with the patter of snares and wafting organs. It's dark, lingering, and beautiful, while Standish, avoiding clarity at all costs, sings only when she feels like it. 

HTRK - Eat Yr Heart by ghostly

Walls has a similar preoccupation with delay pedals. The act's 2010 debut is loaded with blurry, equal doses live and machine-driven moments like HTRK's record, but members Alessio Natalizia and Sam Willis went for blissful techno on Coracle ala Border Community stuff or the forest-rave vibe of Caribou's Swim. With a punchy stomp taking shape midway through "Il Tedesco," this tune stuns as a two-parter. It's disorienting and strewn with bits of feedback, while the beatless end of Coracle is executed with similar tact. Check "Vacant" for just as colorful an arrangement of swells, soaring guitar fuzz, and a coda that sounds like early Pink Floyd. Elsewhere, potent kicks work to steady a sun-streaked record that feels light enough to dissolve on the turntable. 

"Sunporch" By Walls by Kompakt

Beds of keyboards and vocal layers produce a disorienting effect on Hearts, the debut full-length from Swedish duo I Break Horses on Bella Union. The battle is getting the weightless vocals from singer Maria Lindén further up into the mix - or does it matter? The title track feels like one sweeping buildup, as thick and overdriven guitar is matched with synths over a tense, unchanging rhythm. I Break Horses is shamelessly wed to the oft-cited My Bloody Valentine opus that had Creation's Alan McGee "tearfully pleading with (Kevin Shields) to deliver the record before the whole enterprise went bankrupt." On the impenetrable Heart, Lindén and Fredrik Balck come off like Loveless devotees indeed, as if Serena-Maneesh dialed back noise on No. 2: Abyss in B Minor for a more ambient end-product locked into dance music as much as it is to shoegaze. "Load Your Eyes" has Linden's slow verses floating over stuttering kicks, with nuances pulled out and tossed back in for cerebral effect. It works well, but a driving, acid-ridden "Wired" kills when it's dramatically impeded, as if the tape ribbon is backed up and snaking all over the floor. The beats (and tambourine) stay in place, but all of the syrupy tones are wound way down, yielding a stammering mess of choral bits and indiscernible instruments.

I Break Horses - Hearts by Bella Union

Most everything is prevented from advancing too quickly on Alec Koone's Wander/Wonder, a set of hallucinatory, deep-swinging beats issued under the producer's Balam Acab moniker. These eight static-rife instrumentals knock back and forth, each one swelling with sparkling loops and chilling vocal samples that seem to have been pulled from a place similar to the one tapped by Holy Other for With U, released earlier this year on Tri Angle. Koone hasn't ventured far from the spooky, lush hip hop/techno combinations on his See Birds EP, though Wander/Wonder is a more evolved set that sounds like it took careful, obsessive tinkering to finish. It incidentally only outplays his Tri Angle debut by 17 minutes or so.   

Balam Acab - Motion by TriAngleRecords

DJ/producer Max Cooper's tech house cooks gradually with bewitching flourishes. On his Empirisch EP for Cologne, Germany's Traum Schallplatten, "Echoes Reality" is layered in chimes, with screeches and an evocative melody that eventually engulfs the track. Its unpredictable flashes and speaker-cycling ticks are matched in "Qualia" (worked into an early slot on recent jarring live set "Loom"), if in a bit more clinical fashion.

Max Cooper Live - Loom (free download) by Max Cooper

The tones are quite clean on Chris "Tropics" Ward's jazz- and house-tinged jewel Parodia Flare on Planet Mu. Twinkling guitars line its cotton edges, dressed in little more than vibrato. The already warm keys on "Going Back" are padded with vocal harmonies, which slip cozily into a mellotron-rife backdrop on "Wear Out." But the record could use more juice on the percussive end. Churning glitch is welcome on "Figures," where even the dense swirl of whispered choruses can't much soften the growl of the engine beneath it.   

Wear Out (From Parodia Flare - Out Now) by Tropics

With no shortage of drum barrages, Martyn nailed it on Ghost People, a hard but intricate record for Flying Lotus's Brainfeeder label (see my  recent rundown of TOKiMONSTA's EP). The Dutch producer found an artful home on his Great Lengths for techno, dubstep, and more in a way that no one had managed before 2009, at least not on an LP. Ghost People isn't as mysterious as Martyn's Great Lengths, but it's rooted in similar ground and is as urgent as his recent Fabric 50 mix, a series standout. Aimed at the DJ booth, Martyn's sophomore album burns fast. Jungle breaks tunnel under siren synths on "Popgun," a rave banger loud enough to summon Bomb Squad noise collage references, making it a good candidate for segues into hip hop records during recent FlyLo live sets. Boxcutter-edged chords dart between vocal samples on "We Are You in the Future," but none of those ubiquitous, pitched-up MC bits land on these tracks. The voices sewn into Ghost People's convulsive party cuts sound like they're coming from behind you on the club floor, as if nearby conversation is competing with the snare shots in the monitors. Fat chance, though - it's doubtful that anyone is going to be talking when this record is on.

Martyn - Popgun by 3024world

***

BLURT contributor and blogger Dominic Umile lives, writes, and drinks in Brooklyn, NY. Follow him on Twitter: @DominicUmile