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And may I introduce for your listening pleasure Cactus Island
Recordings with "Friends we met along the way"..I thank
you.
"Commander - Slumber" is track numero one, opening with
a smooth chimy eastern melody and a slow brooding bassline. A
cool drumbeat begins to evolve into a cymbal smash and the bassline
leans over and grows in volume.
Imagine walking through a market deep inside Japan, these are
the sounds passed through the mind of a computer and expelled
out of its metal mouth. Excellent.
Tim
Koch "seven ate nine" w alks around your ears with fragile
glass shoes, the secretly drops a 80's snes sound chip into your
brain. This track drops fuzzy melodies and organic pings and clicks,
and organises them into a beach theme tune. Soakupthesun.
"Aileron" by Stendec is spooky at first, slyly crawing
out of the dark, clicking fuzzing and burping until a sub central
bassline pukes out. Echoey samples floats around in the dark sky
and is joined by some boc style fuzzy chords.
Futuristic electronics. Recommended.
Push
your ear close to the fax machine and just listen to what its
thinking, hold that thought, times it by two and you will have
"Koowbwai" by Broca.For some reason whe I listen to
this track I see a choir of fax machines, modems and routers all
singing away, whistles, smooth squeals and beats surround you.
A beautifully bamboo style drumbeat melody joins in [a modem is
on the drums] and pounds away pulling the track along. The technologies
singing sweeps along with melody and beats binding the track together.
Wicked track.
Malfunctioning
stuttering gyrating droids are here, dancing for your pleasure,
welcome to the underground club "Apparet" and the licencee
Tangens. Push your way through the crowd, which is bouncing around
to the thudding bassline, adreanline clicks ejecting drives and
the sound of a buffer underrun. This gets you nodding away, its
to good not to, already classic.
"Sovacusa
- 116" is up next. Dropping a glitchy beat the track emits
a playful and enchanting melody dragging the listener into its
powdery electronic clutches. "Autumn Rain" by Vain Foam
creates a very mellow atmosphere, and thuds along with a calm
hitting bassline. Sit aboard an open top train and let the sounds
soak into your pores. Smooth stuff.
Frank
Murders "Beach Blaster" does exactly what it says. The
waves laps onto the crystalised rock beach and scratch back into
the open sea wave after wave. Plastic seagulls swoop overhead
calling out to the blue sky.
"Bounce Dive" by Helius is the soundtrack to a team
of japanese drummers caught in a bubble of slowmotion. Flying
high above the green fields the organic chords and wonderfully
calm melody drag you out of the sky to bombdive into a pool of
happiness jel. Recommended.
Maps
and Diagrams attack the speed sensors in our ears by unleashing
"n34" from its enclosure. Deep fuzzy chord stride about
in the background pausing and thinking about their next moves
and a heavy as crap bass thuds pure static everywhere.
Wicked.
Verbose - "watchingyouglow" is sinister, so sinister
, I tell thee. Miniscule cats runs around rapping their claws
against the glassy floor as huge drops of icey water smash down
from above. Squeaky little pips and tangly zaps jump around next
to the cats sounding like a massive magic computer booting up
then evolving into a robotic, but elegant butterfly, which then
flutters off into the sky. Magic track.
Skurken
is next with "bjormella", which is very minimal from
the outset, tiny scratches and hisses then develops into a fast
paced spook melody. Imagne running at top whack through a jungle,
all the sounds you would hear, frogs, snakes, hisses, and somehow
a chilled harsh throated piano kicking out a ethnic little tune.
Hard to describe the sound, but Im loving it.
"IM
STUCK INSIDE THE HELL PIPES", well thats what it sounds like
at the start of "codebloated" by Chico Rockstar, but
luckily it chills out a bit. A journey through minimal machinery,
rewinding and hacking sounds all smoothed up by a cloudy chilled
atmospheric tune. Glorious.
Lodil - drops a mashed up 8bit adventure on us with "repleat
curtain". Sounding like Altered Beast stuck inside a helium
balloon with Alex Kidd tapping the outside with a tiny glitch
hammer.Canned vocals pow and wap away but are barely audible under
the zaps and blips of nintendo land. Short but goodness.
Verbose
is back again, but this time "alloneword (xela remix)".
Smoothness pours from xela's head the very second is begins.
Laying in one of the moons craters chilling the hell out, the
music sounds complex but is in itself simplex. If any of you remember
Goeman on the SNES, this is the music all over again, it has that
fine ancient eastern feel to it. More please.
I
would not recommend this, because it sweels your ankles all up,
but Phasmid loves it, what is it you may ask??, well it is the
filthy habit of "Eating ghosts". That dirty Phasmid.
Shrill plonks and a clicky glitch beat draw you into the track,
as babbling machines shout away in the background. The beat takes
over driving it all along, as more ghosts plink and plonk around
you.I couldnt imagine what it would be like to eat a ghost, maybe
like eating a net curtain, and thats well hard. Cool track.
Final track on this compilation goes to Bovine life with "gneiss".
Cut up vocals to the maximum, I THINK in mexican, bovine smashes
pulls and craps them to pieces, this is quite scary.Scary but
interesting and thats how I like it.
Also
check out the magnificent Cact 001 - "Maps and Diagrams /
Broca, Split" which I think is still available on Boomkat.
"Cactus
island recordings - friends we met along the way" is seventeen
tracks long, and there isnt a filler in there, just good damn
fine music all the way through, and for £7.49 its just illegally
good.
Cactus are looking to be developing into a killer label, and why
not, with music of this calibre it is going to happen.
Highly recommended.
Sam
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