Manslaughter 777 "World Vision Perfect Harmony (Thrill Jockey)"
From Thrill Jockey:
For their debut as a duo, Buford and Jones blend bracing and imaginative takes on rhythmic-centric forms from dub, breakbeats, hip hop and beyond for a phantasmagoria of bristling drumscapes.
Manslaughter 777 pulls together a vast array of disparate percussive traditions and patterns into a veil of dark, propulsive energy. Recorded and mixed by Seth Manchester at Machines With Magnets, the album’s mélange of live and sampled beats fizzle, splat and rupture with an edge. While there are sounds that could be at home on a record by The Body, Manslaughter 777 inhabits much more open spaces. The duo’s music is based primarily on drums and eclectic samples, shifting melodic ideas to the overtones and resonances of their respective percussive thuds or clicks. Buford and Jones incorporate hybridizations of live, sampled, and electronic percussion obscuring their boundaries while highlighting their specific tonal and timbral qualities. The repetitive amen break of “ARC” creates a hypnotic stasis before being broken wide open by bending and grizzly distorted hits. “Gainax” and “Mag Tech” both utilize a rolling tom pattern as a tonal drone that interplays with pitched bass drums to startlingly contrasting effects. Elysian vocal snippets and laidback tempos spin pieces like “I Can Not Tell You How I Feel” and “Do You Know Who Loves You” into more contemplative and ecstatic atmospheres. An alchemical balance of detailed and dynamic production guides each element to the fore in steady waves of relentless momentum.
Taken as a whole, World Vision Perfect Harmony is a cornucopia of rhythmic texture. Manslaughter 777 channels a deluge of kineticism into a web of syncopated grooves that are equally entrancing and provocative. Audacious sound architects, Buford and Jones built an album that passionately revels in the world of rhythm. Manslaughter 777’s constructs glide as gracefully as they rumble. Together, they are a monument to the power of percussion.
New Bums "Last Time I Saw Grace (Drag City)"
From Drag City:
Back in slagtion, New Bums, that duo nobody thought to ask for – Six Organs of Admittance’s Ben Chasny and Skygreen Leopards’ Donovan Quinn – are deeper in their nocturnal jungle where all the folly and failure in the world is like an elegant fever dream you want to have every night, and do. Dry humor and pathos pop in a collapsed acoustic vein!
MONO "Beyond the Past • Live in London with the Platinum Anniversary Orchestra (TRL)"
From Temporary Residence Ltd.:
Beyond the Past • Live in London with the Platinum Anniversary Orchestra documents MONO’s extraordinary performance from the Beyond the Past event that celebrated the band’s 20th anniversary, which took place at the historic Barbican Centre in London, England on December 14, 2019. For that once-in-a-lifetime event, MONO selected a memorable lineup of old and new friends, including fellow Japanese underground icons, Boris and Envy, as well as French post-metal legends, Alcest, and UK collaborators A.A. Williams and Jo Quail. The event culminated with MONO performing with The Platinum Anniversary Orchestra, featuring National Youth String Orchestra to a rapt, sold-out audience of 2,000.
Playing through a two-hour set that touches on the band’s entire history, the sheer euphoria and dynamic resonance that engulfed the massive crowd was captured in brilliant detail by MONO’s live sound engineer, Matt Cook. Meticulously mastered by Bob Weston and presented here in its entire two-hour glory, Beyond the Past is one of the most essential MONO recordings. Packaged in a triple gatefold with accompanying 40-page photo book, this is the rare document of an event that is an event in and of itself.
Sulene "he•don•ic (RTP)"
Written, produced, mixed & mastered by Sulene in Brooklyn, NY.