Album Review

SSLEEPERHOLD – Ruleth (Holodeck, 2013)

ssleeperhold - ruleth album cover
SSLEEPERHOLDBeatsslave (Holodeck)

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This bad boy was sold out for a bit, even though it only came out a few months ago. But Holodeck knows their shit and repressed this asap, so I figured now’s the time for yall to hear about if you missed out on the first go-round. SSLEEPERHOLD, aka José Cota of Medio Mutante, puts together a sexxy synthy dance fest that has the catchiest hooks outside of pop. This is all over the place style wise, like a New Age cloud rap darkwave that could just as easily come from a John Hughes movie as it could from John Carpenter, slow & grimy, tender & bangin, making for beastly times on the dance floor as well as solo transcendental mind explorations. Ruleth gets all the points for originality in this synth saturated scene. Can’t wait to see where he goes with this. Excellent fucking stuff. And the repress was only another 300 copies, so don’t wallow for too long on it.

Haiku Review

WANDA GROUP – CLEANERS (VLEKD, 2012)


WANDA GROUPB MUSEUM (VLEKD)

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Download CLEANERS
/minimalist murk/
/drugged dystopia party/
/visions of sleep beats/

Album Review

Nop – No Thing (self released, 2012)


NopQueenlord (self released)

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This record is insane. Some guy from Roxbury (aka Boston) making twisted bedroom jams of a hundred different genres. Every song is another sound, tropical drone, gritty technoise, dubby witch house, skittery ambience, spastic jungle DnB, chilled catchy AnCo pop, lo-fi chiptuney party starters, everything under the DIY sun. And it’s super sample heavy, almost every track has some clips from films and interviews and stuff. Definitely demo style, but not demo quality. This is fucking killer, it’s just all over the place. It makes for one chaotic mindfuck of a record and clearly that’s something to be proud of. Plus, IT’S FREE. Go download this shit before he changes his mind.

Haiku Review

Bunrage – Bun Palette (self released, 2010)


BunrageDancing Alone In The Mines

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Bun Palette (download)
/buzzy warm synth beats/
/midnight bedroom dance party/
/cloak for glimmer highs/

Haiku Review

Minisystem – Life Above Ground (basic_sounds, 2011)


MinisystemRest Control

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Life Above Ground (download)
basic_sounds
/chill synth energy/
/smoothed dreams bounce through warm spring nights/
/free sparks & stars dance/

Album Review

My Brother Daniel – Ponky (Just Not Normal, 2011)


My Brother DanielFat Bird

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This dude? LOVE this dude. My Brother Daniel is Radio Scotvoid (also half of Small Radio), a Scot who moved to the forever under appreciated Salem, MA and it seems like his sole purpose for doing so was to make this town as awesome as possible. He’s been putting together amazing chiptune shows and spinnin regularly at the Gulu, did a stint at the local university radio station WMWM, and somehow has time to make ridiculously killer electronic records. FOR FREE.

My Brother Daniel originally had it’s roots in “surreal jazz/funk, ambient/acid house and DIY/Bent recording stylings” and was only ever a live project. That is, until Ponky. This album sounds to me more like a blown out chiptune noise fuck than anything else. It’s unbelievably amazing. It reminds me of NHK’s Special earlier this year (which I literally want to make babies with), with similar scratchy anti-beats and a hard on for melting genres. My Brother Daniel is especially apt at turning your traditional 8-bits into something infinitely more interesting while tossing in harsh noise, party pumping techno beats, and wonky skweee funk.

Ponky is kinda hard to peg just for this reason. You can only put this on your “Get Ready To Ignite” playlist if your pals are of similar ilk and are into the whole stuttery noise dance thing. Your electronic noise heads might be turned off by the fact that this actually has some hard hitting grooves and presses your hipster lo-fi electro buttons. So if you’re finding a lack of people to enjoy Ponky with, you can either blast this fucker all by your lonesome or come by my place and we’ll use it as our soundtrack to killin Contra aliens.

This comes out next month on Just Not Normal, a Dutch netlabel, so it’ll be available for free then. I’m not gonna be a dick and steal their thunder by lettin y’all download it now, just make sure your keep a sharp eye on their or Scotvoid’s site so you can revel in the gritty brilliance of Ponky asap.