Nighttime (1995)

I think we're listening to different things. My nighttime world is orange. It sounds orange. I took a week off work to fly to Wellington for three days and see Lil B. Before flying, this was my jam. This and Burnout Paradise. Let the genius of this and the retardation of that hypnotize you into a warm, low-key, hypno-elation. 'Cause it's all fun and it's all orange.

A+

here

Who else thought the synths were an excursion or a side thing (2013)

Through the Window is Dominick Fernow's music/album for/about the masses/world/post-industrial-landscape, and in it he uses the language of techno rather than noise because techno and the masses/worlds/post-industrial-landscapes are interdependent, the former being born of, illustrating, and fueled by relationships within the latter group, the latter an inevitability giving rise to the former, the purveyors of which are inhabitants of the latter- critics or futurist weirdos, those in need of transcendence, and those who have given up on trying. Fernow usually deals with mechanical nihilism under the name 'Vatican Shadow' and kitschy synth driven gloom with the band Cold Cave, and Through the Window initially seems to have more in common stylistically (and presumably thematically) with these non-Prurient projects than with any Prurient release as of yet. Under 'Prurient,' behind or between the 1421841284021985415765856596797 harsh noise records Fernow's put out, there's been a refreshing element of the personal which has endeared him to many a non-noise-fan over the years, some hearing a sort of abstracted heavy metal, some hearing a condensed punk rock, most agreeing that at their best these records come from the heart and stomach(acid) rather than the book of Industrial Dada or How To Piss Your Parents Off While You're Still Living At Home. Through the Window has been designed to appear personal, then, and significant too, but surely sensitive to the themes and universal concerns of its adopted techno language.

The record is three songs long, steadily repetitious on the first and third, brief and disturbing on the second. For all three, Fernow employs the Prurient character as observer rather than subject matter. What he's looking at and interacting with is a familiar techno landscape- a bleak metropolis and hazy sci-fi desert. This, of course, is less a fiction than it is an exaggerated reflection of our world. Prurient's vision is a paranoid, abnormally sexless one that's neither conventionally crushing nor transcendent. So much of Fernow's material as Prurient has suggested a link between the self and the mechanical with its industrially abstracted expression of the musician's wants, desires, and obsessions, that it's strange to hear how alienated the character is on interacting with the (retro)futuristic metropolis. The raw expression the character longs for on the three minute Terracotta Spine struggles with, and is restrained by something that could either be a mechanical rhythm or the sound of a heartbeat under panic. The heartbeat loses out for the final track You Show Great Spirit- its repeated phrase something like a deadpan mockery of house-ish vocal samples, or the victor from track 2's ironic initiation gloat. Through the Window juggles panic and apathy, its subject matter humankind's interaction with a mechanical, indifferent world. For once 'Prurient' isn't simply a window into Fernow's id- this time he's thrown the character out of that one and into our space. Rather than being 'ego-less,' Through the Window offers a perspective from which to look at the world that we (and Fernow) occupy. It's a nasty picture/lens, but the brief panic attack in the album's centre suggests that there's some sort of humanity in the middle of everything, as susceptible as it is to being crushed by a totalitarian indifference.

Recommended for fans of Prurient, probably not techno.

B

try / buy

Michael Mayer - Immer (2002)

'CAUSE SOMETIMES IT'S GOOD TO FEEL GOOD, YA KNOW... MAN

the non-professional (non-critical) Immer written template seems to be Immer makes me feel cool even though i'm not and so here's my one:

my new haircut makes me feel like college Ders, one of my wisdom teeth broke through but only some of the way and when i poke the gum it expels pus and old food, the other side isn't showing at all, but it hurts, so i'm scared how gnarly it's gonna be when it gets to the same stage as the other one, if it ever does, i'm losing weight through exercise but not on my face, as a matter of fact, i think it's getting bloated, and the fact i care or even notice really bums me out, though i'm sure it's better that than the blur that beer-bros experience or lose track of experiencing, of course, when one day their faces are swollen 'cause carbs, 'cause dehydration, 'cause beer, and old girls are looking better than ever, maybe married, or they have a kid, or they just don't want a bloat-face ex-bully ex-bro age 20something beerface who told their little brother what they did, how they did it and when, too, publicly, trust translates to humiliation, with these people, what's left but denial, harden the hard shell of denial through future bullying, but who's left, ha? nobody, but seriously, where does this pus come from, in this volume, it's like getting a cold and thinking roughly the same thing, about snot, college ders, broken gums, bleeding teeth, wait for lunch, slimy cucumber, single, of course, sex-drive, gone, at 22, baldness comes in cycles, next stop, next year, shiny-head-fat-faced-fuck, and ya know what? as much as I like Immer there's no way it'll ever make me feel cool, and it shouldn't work on you either

Flying Far makes it feel like I'm flying through the sky, hungry, on a wave of positivity

A-

5/5 amg etc

here / buy

From The Far Future II

12 years late, no less important, maybe more important, Actress meets Jeff Mills, maybe but probably not. It's so singular that anyone can hear it and get anything they want from it, Dixon letting the songs move and fade rather than 'build' in any traditional sense. Throughout is a tense balancing act of minimalism, emotion, weight, weightlessness, melody, and understated aggression. This comes out best in Dark City of Hope, I think. The main mix's distorted drones grow in emotional and aesthetic resonance through the very act of droning, burying the drums as terse electronic flourishes add a third layer to the narrative. The hard mix (not included) indicates how hard-as-fuck the song could sound but reasonably doesn't on the record, Dixon instead favouring the isolation and interaction of opposing elements- the balancing act that is From the Far Future Pt 2 from the cover to each of the 14 tracks within. It's dark, beautiful, and hopeful, a cohesive journey record that could be the story of Detroit, a formal exercise, or an emotional one. Likely all, it's that good.

A-

try / buy (lp sold out ;__;)

Actress (2012)

R.I.P. might be better off classified as an ambient album, electronic music almost entirely removed from "dance"; its very best moment is devoid of the latent afro-futurist impulses that underlie most of Cunningham's oeuvre. "N.E.W" emerges towards the end like cooling blasts of wind seeping out of the broken steam pipes of "The Lord's Graffiti." It wafts dreamily like vintage Brian Eno. This stunning five-minute mirage is displaced by the closer "IWAAD," where a violent kick drum stamps through the fog, carrying with it shards of strings and vocal gasps through a caustic, gurgling inferno. It's a heady end to a heady album, and one that shows Actress can make some of the most exciting techno around even after an album of ambient plinking and plonking. Not that he ever really makes techno. He just makes Actress music, and R.I.P. is the most enveloping and fully developed of his cultivated soundworlds yet.
-R.A. 

A-

try
buy (cds out of stock, not paying for mp3 when one's potentially available so here's alt until restocked)