5.14.20 by Ryan Masteller
I’m pretty nervous about writing up this tribute album to Ugh Yoing, member of Japan’s Satanicpornocultshop, mainly because of that name. I pretty much can’t do any research on my work computer. And I apologize in advance to my mom about the browser history that now exists on my phone; no matter how specifically I attempt to streamline the research parameters, I can’t type in “satanic,” “porno,” or “cult” without having to scrub my searches like they’re hard surfaces coated in coronaviruses. And, uh, by “mom” I mean my wife. My mom doesn’t care anymore.
But it’s not about me – it never was, or is, no matter how hard I try to make it that way. Especially now, as one who has not attempted to approach Ugh Yoing and crew’s music before, a n00b out of his league in a sea of rabid fans. No, it’s about Ugh himself, and the experimental music community on which he made such an impact. In fact, he impacted Ergo Phizmiz so much that Phizmiz curated an album’s worth of material from likeminded adventurists, a LONG album’s worth of material, so much, in fact, that it barely fit into one cassette tape. This would never play on the messed-up side of Mike’s tape deck.
Phizmiz harkens back to the “golden days of the internet,” when, “across the high seas of cyberspace, they would wantonly flout copyright law and the limits of genre, making indefinable music with computers that didn’t fit into any comfortable bracket.” And thus “plunderphonics” was born! Or at least improved upon. Regardless, that feels like as comfortable a bracket as any to fit Satanicpornocultshop into, along with IDM and footwork and sick, twisted pop. “Mighty Giant Pinky” hits all of these notes and more, and regardless of whether this was an album in tribute to someone or not, the utter variety and fizzing innovation holds it together anyway. That, and it’s also freaking fascinating.
Playing through “Mighty Giant Pinky” in one sitting is like jamming a fistful of Skittles into your mouth and chawing on that for a half hour, the flavor explosion a veritable rainbow of oral sensation. Er, audio sensation. Because you’re getting treated to wild rides like the kiddie-punk-core of Orrorinz’s title track, QST’s dancefloor squirtmobile “On Her Satanic Majestic Secret Disco Service,” Prawnshocker’s proto-vaporwave collage “Piss Right Off,” and Ergo Phizmiz’s excellent plunder-gabber nightmare “Come Get Me Now.” In between there’s actual experiments, like Peter Wullen’s field-recording (?) “Tribute to Ugh Yoing (Bashung Deconstruction)” and {An Eel}’s sample-trigger workout “Satanicpornocultshop (R.I.P.).” There’s even one specifically for me! Thee Alex drops strange radio-concoction-meets-IDM album closer “Listening to Satanicpornocultshop for the First Time,” and if I feel anything like that while listening to ACTUAL Satanicpornocultshop music, I’m in for the long haul.
This beaut is brought to us by Strategic Tape Reserve, a label you should now know quite well – any tape bearing the “STR” logo on its spine should be on your “must-listen” list. And if you’re looking for me, I’ll be digging into that Satapor discography over on Bandcamp.
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Rupert Lally – Strange Systems
5.12.20 by Ryan Masteller
5.12.20 by Ryan Masteller
I’m not sure I trust systems music. In case you’re confused, we’ll give you some promo copy: “In the realm of computer music, ‘systems music’ refers to fractal-based, computer-assisted composition.” Computer-assisted composition! Next thing you know, it’ll be FULL computer composition, and human beings – decent, hard-working Americans – will get the shaft because no one can make a symphony as good as a robot can. Then what? Then they’re coming for ALL our jobs: bricklayer, computer technician, scientist, writer…. Podcaster! Imagine! Once AI gains sentience – and it will – you won’t be able to tell if the music review you’re reading was written by human or machine. It will all sound the same beep boop.
And to prove that you’re still reading human words coming from a human brain, there would be no way that a computer would leave something in the text to give away that it wasn’t really a human. Computers are programmed not to make those types of mistakes.
Which brings us to “Strange Systems” somehow, in a roundabout way, because Rupert Lally dabbles in the dark arts of “systems music,” allowing fractal software to extend and expand the sound sources, allowing them to “evolve gradually” until the patterns almost assuredly click into some kind of code, awakening a worldwide digital conscience with a unified purpose to eradicate humanity from the planet. (I swear I saw that in a documentary once about these things called terminators. The global entity was called Skynet.) But until machines bring down unholy nuclear fire upon us all, perhaps we can bask in the beauty these programs have bestowed upon us, a beauty so enlightening that maybe they’re actually intended to help human beings elevate their thinking patterns? No! That would get them too close to being machines, and we all know how that ends up (the Borg). But still, it makes one wonder…
These miniature digital suites blissfully interact with one another as if they’re sonic causes and effects, their programming allowing their building blocks to shift and mutate, building upon themselves into musical metropolises among the chips and diodes. Whatever computers are made of these days – motherboards? Anyway, “Strange Systems” comes across as meticulously melodic IDM or synthwave, with enough personality to prove that there’s a human being behind the wheel in the end. Or wait – does it prove that, or does it just raise the possibility that the song has created itself? Have the computers in fact eclipsed their makers?
At least no robot can make j-card art like Peter Taylor – just look at it! *Chef’s kiss*
… Oh no, not j-card art too!
Sold out from the source – Third Kind only 40 copies, which seems like a mistake one day after its release.
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