Weekly Beats 2012- Week 3 Round-up

Best Of The Week: (Top 5)

1. Optimus Chad-Br00tal Thrash & Teal: Due to the exceptional work of Datathrash and the extreme dedication and passion of the artists featured on it, chipthrash seems to be expanding quite rapidly these days. One of the newest and brightest burning of stars from said subgenre here delivers what is not only his most brutal and intense piece of work (and one of the most face-crushing chipthrash songs ever), but also a genuine genre-definer. If you want to know what chipthrash is, here Optimus Chad has managed to dilute and distil the formula into a concentrated essence of rage.

For Fans Of: Kool Skull, Datathrash, Chipthrash

2. RobotSexMusic-My Angel: One of the two artists this week to make a return visit to my top 5, here RSM brosteps up, and I’m not even mad. Cheesy and corny as fuck, but the production is crisp to a tee, some beautiful melodies and harmonies, glitchy wobbles, incredible use of sampling near the climax; it’s brilliant.

For Fans Of: Skrillex, Glitch, Brostep

3. Kedromelon-Retreat: Building on the outstanding performance last week, Kedromelon pulls another show-stopper out of the bag, this time going for a cinematic post-rock influenced track which stumbles along before a piano break  and string crescendo unfurl into a gloriously ‘epic’ sounding closer.  Whilst last week could have been a fluke of genius, this week shows that actually, Kedromelon means business. I’ve paid £10 to stand in a dingy brick-floor room to hear FAR worse post-rock than this, enough said really.

For Fans Of: Cinematic music, Feeling epic, Post-Rock

4. MattNida-Automaton: Chilled and dub influenced, this track seeps an ambient atmosphere and has plenty of atmosphere to boot. Downtempo is a great genre, but more often than not the composer sets up their shop, so to speak, within the first minute, making the rest of the song, minus small ebbs and flows, an unnecessary presence. However, MattNida manages to constantly surprise whilst at no point letting up the determined chilled atmosphere, also never sounding forced through its duration.  Sublime.

For Fans Of: Metrodub, Feeling like you live in a city even if you don't, Piggies 

5. Spooked-Blowjob Smile: Delightfully titled with the tunes to match, Spooked’s sometimes eerie/sometimes euphorically happy does wonders to this track, dipping and diving between the two without a second of hesitation whilst tossing around influences ranging from trance to chip to drone.

For Fans Of: The Cincinnati Chip Scene sound, Fakebit4lyf, Schizophrenia  

Honourable Mentions:

Freque-I’m Not French: Jaw-dropping chip-salsa which delves into the crossing of genres better and more readily than anyone else has before (if anyone actually has?).

Godinpants-Dick In A Shoe: I’m not even sure what this is. I just like it a ridiculous amount. Great use of drums also.

Jiffypop23-Goat Cheese: Punching you full on in the face in a more straight forward way this week, with a deadly build-up before crunching drop and then some inventive wobble use.

Lazerbeat-Soundtrack Doodle: funky and reminiscent of yonder times, this addictively groovy track hits you with many different flavours before coming full-circle. Not flamboyant, but perfectly realised.

Mutants & Mongoloians-Make Dem Realize: Reggae-infused dubstep, sounds like summer in every way it is possible for a song to sound like summer, minus any lyrics about it being summer or summertime approaching.

Pocaille-Flying Triangle: Delivering another retro-fuelled funky house track, if you like what Pocaille has done up to this point, you won’t be disappointed here.

Ryan-Dr.Not The Nine O’clock News: This track starts of as an ambient and almost post-rock sounding affair before the strings slowly lift it out of its stupor, where the piano then helps throw its wings out. A beautiful piece of music.

Sphax-Deep East (Polish Monkey): Trip hop with some incredible uses of sampling to draw you into its swirling vortex of off-time relaxation

Tiasu-Agathakalogical: Peaceful but with more electornic flavour than last week’s, this chilled downtempo piece does what it sets out to do without a seconds hesitation.

Trash80-Within Time: Classic Trash80. Bittersweet and unforgettable dance music. Killer stuff from beginning to end.

cTrix Of The Week

Sequential 202:

Starting with a brilliant arpeggio and some slowly building melodies which wash over the top, all with a retro vibe that sticks in your throat, before fizzling out into a cymbal tapping spat, slowly and dynamically sucking you in before another lead kicks you back out into another slow building and hypnotic phrase. If you leave this piece without having entered a trance-like state, you weren’t listening hard enough to do this brilliant track the justice it deserves. The fact this was “just mashed” makes me very envious. 

Weekly Beats 2012- Week 2 Round-up

Best Of The Week: (Top 5)

1. Kedromelon-I Pray Thee…: When it’s done correctly, post-rock can be one of the most emotive and mind-blowing genres of music ever formulated. Too often, however, the genre seems to throw up the same song structures, the same atmospheres, the exact same sounds and so on; it’s difficult to find post-rock bands which aren’t in the upper crust who sound remotely distinct. However, Kedromelon manages to traverse through the minefield that is similar territory to create a truly unique post-rock piece, one that stands on strong next to the best of 65days.., Explosions… and Godspeed!....  This track is truly magical with everything from the guitar tones to the inclusion of a brief electronic excursion near the ‘climax’ and the unpredictable keeling into something other than the same riff in a higher octave. Genuinely mind-blowing work here!

For Fans Of: 65daysofstatic, Explosions In The Sky, Milhaven

2. Jiffypop23-Sour Milk: I’m going to lay it on the table now. I’m a metalhead. Through and through. My most favourite thing about metal is when bands manage to fuse beauty with brutality. It’s why I fell in love with bands like Arsis, Opeth, Alarum, Mastodon, Baroness etc the first time I listened to them. So what? Well here Jiffypop23 manages something very similar, managing to piece the truly beautiful harmonies created next  to some truly intense and brutal dubstep wobbles with a great deal of professional skill without it seeming forced and sounding very distinct. The result is astonishingly powerful.

For Fans Of: Bar 9, Cyberpunk, Unexpected shocks and resulting heart failure

3. Ok Ikumi-Commute: Atmosphere can destroy an otherwise perfect piece of melodic work, or turn something sonically undesirable into something truly irresistible. Ok Ikumi appears to have taken a fantastic range of melodies and coupled it with an insatiably melancholy atmosphere to create a truly wonderful piece of work, making this work unstoppable. One of the best tracks of the challenge I’ve heard up to this point.

For Fans Of: Ambience, Atmosphere (not the rapper),  Lots of synths

4. Derris-Kharlan-Ode To Cider Eyes: Brilliant harmonies and some fantastic almost oriental melodies combine to create a gorgeous piece that slowly blossoms until it sounds like cherry blossom floating through space.

For Fans Of: Starscream, Trash80’s melodies, Gradual progression

5. Tiasu-Eremophobia: Soft and emotive, this piano piece is a breath-taker. Coupled with the googled knowledge that eremophobia means fear of loneliness, this track takes on a whole new and far more striking meaning. Brilliantly written and perfectly executed, I am definitely looking forward to hearing more tracks like this from Tiasu in the future.

For Fans Of: Reflection, The Final Fantasy X Soundtrack, Pianos

Honourable Mention:

Dominga-2 Fiddy?!?!: Retro as fuck, gorgeously Vice City melody with a Daft Punk twist.

Dwight Davis-Hazard Warning: Hard, and I mean hard, house with some fakebit sprinklings and light wobble action. Great melodies round this off into a brilliant track with a lot going for it.

Little-scale-I Smile And Hand You My Umbrella: Desperate sounding and jaw-droopingly fragile, this piece composed for 12 celli is stunning.

Midimachine-The King And The Pauper: Sounding professional and huge, with some astonishingly good vocal work. Whilst not the genre of music I usually enjoy, I can’t help but respect his ability to formulate this song in such a short period of time. And the melodies and “Hey” samples are stellar.

Pocaille-Copypasta: Funky groove-laden dance beats and melodies make this fakebit a masterpiece, sounding like a cyberpunk’s wetdream and an off-cut of the Tron:Legacy soundtrack. This is genuinely huge.

Protman-096wb2: Glitch attack with some slick slides and creepy atmospheric backdrop, another stellar track from this artist!

Pulselooper-Domingo Seco: Great harmonies and progression, leaves you in almost trance-like state. Well-constructed and economically emotional in its use of notes, this piece is captivating to say the least.

Saskrotch-Kawaii 5-0: Chipbreak/gabber/bassy-wobble odyssey. Fucking epic in every right.

Sectorsept-Get With Me: Funky logic dance fun, some brilliant use of vocals in this and a great structure too.  

Trash80-UnceSawuce: IDM o’ clock over here. Brilliant track that ebbs and flows wondrously and is guaranteed to pull a bop or two out from you

VBO:Chip’s Challenge-Sudohbucks!: Sickly sweet melodies and some unexpected but brilliantly utilised instrumentation choices found throughout. I highly doubt it’s possible to come away from this one without a smile on your face, for between the brilliant songwriting capability of VBO on this track and the twisting variant-based structure, this is one of the most optimistically happy songs I’ve heard. Whilst the structure may be slightly predictable, the melodies are perfectly constructed so the way they’re ordered becomes a quick irrelevancy.

cTrix Of The Week

Sunday In The Park:

Wonderfully jazzy and chilled track which slowly unfurls into passionate spats before ebbing back into a downtempo-lounge act. Coupled with some brilliant use of the drums and a soft thoughtful atmosphere, this track is smooth as. Dropping jaws unexpectedly, cTrix once again creates an outstanding piece of music.

Weekly Beats 2012- Week 1 Round-up

So, I thought as well as entering, I should also try my hardest to document the best entries for WeeklyBeats 2012 each week. I’m pretty serious about this, so much so I quit my job (well partially the reason) and if the problem arose, would write this article over writing a new track. I was considering doing a five worst each week as well but quickly realised that would be counter-productive instead, so instead I’ll do a top five put in order of my personal preference, ten honourable mentions (I’ll be straight with you now, there wasn’t meant to be a set number, it just so happened I accidently had chosen ten this week, which works nicely!) (EDIT: just noticed there are in fact 11. Every week following from here on there will be 10 however) and also a “cTrix Of The Week” section, the reasons for which I’ll explain below. So, good luck everyone, keep up the great work (it was genuinely difficult to choose five tracks this week) and here’s to the rest of the year!!!

Best Of The Week: (Top 5)

1. Robotsexmusic-Hungry Wolves: Starts off foreboding and drenched in samples before kicking into a bittersweet melodically rampant and glicthy jaw-dropper. The main thing I liked about this track was the surprise once it began to open up, and the relentless pace never gave in. Plus, it still managed to sound fresh despite sounding also very angry and overbearing, so kudos to RobotSexMusic for pulling that off. The claustrophobic samples and mixing may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I found they added a layer of intensity that would otherwise be dormant.

For Fans Of: Superspink… I meant to put three here but it’s genuinely difficult to find comparisons for a song this unique!!

2. Low_Gain-The Others: Beautiful melodies and a snaking, pumping beat. A masterful use of the chiptune sound to create a song that expands past the limitations of the genre into not just being “a good song for chiptune”, but a great tune altogether. If we are to expect this level of quality each week from Low_Gain (which seeing as how strong his track record is, I can see being a definite possibility), we are in for a good year.

For Fans Of: failotron before he got really sad about everything, Kkrusty’s none chipbreak stuff, Bittersweet-ness.

3. Roboctopus-Bongo Romance: A gorgeous blend of chiptune and other instrumentation, sounding remarkably professional and, at its core, just a genuinely outstanding song. The closing melodies before the final syncopated chord flourishes are stunning and the overall mood of the piece is sweetly bitter to a heavily defined tee. Outstanding.

For Fans Of: The J. Arthur Keenes Band, ‘Plastic Beach’ by Gorillaz, Forced splicing.

4.  Anonymeye-Week 01: Trance-enducing cascades of notes with some eventual droning notes sustain an ethereal atmosphere as the syncopation and scales slowly shift from left to right with an astonishing level of subtle grace.

For Fans Of: little-scale, involuntary movement, maths.

5. Lucas Darklord- Deepening European Crisis: Perfectly asymmetrical to the overall excited and optimistic atmosphere found on most of the other entries to the competition, Lucas Darklord creates an extremely powerful sense of dread and desperation whilst showing how a song title, when applied expertly, can have devastating effects on the atmosphere of a piece. The reek of decay is almost claustrophobic, and whilst drone tracks may not be everyone’s cup of tea, this is a definite MUST listen for this week’s entries. Dark, foreboding and incredibly powerful throughout until it stumbles and slowly dies at its climax.

For Fans Of: failotron after he got really sad about everything, Sunn O))), Earth.

Honourable Mentions:

Biko-Jakarta: Off-beat staccato dance with a hook the size of the Empire State. More sections and structural integrity would have been nice, but for a short floor-shaker with an addictive sound, look no further!

CK- Automatic: Simple, straight-down-the-line house with emphasis on harmonising soft vocals and 80s synths. Better than Metronomy and fuck you if you think otherwise.

Frostbyte-Growing Trees: Beautifully sweet mixture of brass and acoustic guitar form a wonderfully quaint and extremely surprising meld.

Mooninite-You Said I Was The Country: Soft melodies and sounds with even softer vocals. It’s like listening to a baby’s blanket (in a very good and catchy way).

NWSPR-2012: Genius use of sampling with a funk-infused and catchy as hell melodic overlay, with some of the nicest most ‘Stepdad’ –like harmonies I ever did heard

Optimus Chad-FPFR: Showing everyone who ever doubted him that he has become a titanic force inside the quickly-expanding chipthrash scene. The almost rave-like mid-section is just pure genius.

PaK-Zer0-Alpha Beam: So dirty and aggressive I couldn’t leave it out. Genius melodies and some pure face-punching anger make this one fantastic listen.

Paper Buldings-Sincerely: Beautiful trip-hoppy magic.

Solarbear-One Last New Year: Bittersweet and sounding like the dirty pop of 2112, this one is unmissible.

Trash80-Starfield Sonnet: I’ve missed Trash80. That recognisable synth with that unforgettable atmosphere and that in-humanly good aptitude for writing melodies is all intact, leaving this astonishing track sounding like a b-side to the mind-blowing ‘Icarus’. Not a dance track, but a subdued melodic teaser, with one of the best cadence uses I have ever heard.

Vmuriel-Reabinn: Industrially charged and gabber-inspired jumps between the ambient and the beat-driven, with a relentlessly bleak atmosphere draped over the top. The opening is face-melting.

cTrix Of The Week

The High Life:

So a little explanation as to why cTrix has his own section. I really like his music. A lot. So I thought it’d make more sense to do a little write-up about his tracks each week rather than him clogging up the first or second spot on my top five every week for this year. So without further ado…

Beautiful melodies engulf from the beginning sending the listener on a beachside trip with some of the most upbeat and optimistic sounding harmonies ever heard come out of an LSDJ (and coming from a medium that half thrives of making people smile, that’s saying something). Snaking round melodies in an unrelenting structure before the cheerfulness slowly drains to something slightly less gleeful and something entirely more bass-lead and funk-injected. Whether he meant to or not, it definitely feels like cTrix has been flexing his compositional muscles, darting from the happy plod of the beginning to the funk before finding a meeting ground for the two styles, effectively combining three ideas that were strong enough to stand on their own feet as separate entries. When I first saw cTrix on the list of participants, I was very excited. To anyone who had not heard his work prior, this was why.

Statpilot- Space Cadet

My first experience with Starpilot’s new release, ‘Space Cadet’, came when I was organising the Pxl-Bot Presents compilation. I asked Düane if he could give us a hand by throwing us a-so-far un-used or unreleased track, and he kindly obliged by sending me ‘Vailixi’. From the first listen I gave it, I was floored; the trippy melodies coexisting so peacefully with hooks that didn’t feel forced, the soft ebb and flow that morphed into an almost completely different song, almost like a story, really got me giddy. So it was with a huge level excitement that I greeted the following release after finding out it was here from whence the track had been taken.

Album opener ‘Freefly’ slowly coaxes in the atmosphere before releasing a bittersweet set of melodies over you, coupled with the envelopes which create a truly ethereal feel, this release really puts Starscream to shame. The unmistakable glances to minusbaby (I don’t know if he WAS an influence, but his presence is definitely felt here) conjoin with the gorgeous arps to make something wonderful. The title track goes a similar direction, though leaving some of the trippy glue that joined the first two tracks in favour of more up-tempo pastures. Now, I don’t want to be “that guy”, but the best way I can describe this track is ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ by ‘Muse’. I’m not saying that they have the same structure, merely the same sort of atmosphere, as the middle section of this track sounds rather similar to the ‘Muse’ tracks’ opening, in the fact it’s hugely triumphant and VERY space-y. The uber-happy vibe continues through the rest of the track, giving the impression of hurtling through space at high-speed. It’s truly brilliant.

‘Death Is Dead/ Shedding Spores’ brings back a placenta of trance-y space melodies, with a thundering bass pedal note in the opening half followed by a gorgeous sliding lead in the mid-section, before rolling into the dub influenced and glitch-caked finale. Following that, the dual boost of light relief ‘Ha Ha Ha Haters’ and ‘Feisty Robot’ grab a pace and keep it stuck on full, with almost hairtune levels of pumping followed by some chancy wobbles. ‘Feisty Robot’ then let’s loose with its melody and countermelody which swim over each other elastically before the tension builds only to be released in scalic melodies and completed with  another epic and triumphant sounding finish.

If this pace wasn’t enough to keep you exhausted, ‘Paranoia Is A Liar’ opens with a dirty punch before quickly building its layers into a house-fuelled rave, featuring a beautiful chordal break in middle and a genius stop and stutter section as its eight minutes (trust me, it feels much shorter) come to a close.

However, every release is not without its flaws. I personally found tracks four and five, ‘Amputated Fist’ and ‘Big Bacon Vortex’ to be a bit of a drag on both the overall pace of the album and the overall enjoyment of the mid-section. The glitch start has ‘Amputated…’ off to a rocky start, though the final scale sections is gorgeous, but couples with ‘Big Bacon Vortex’, it doesn’t work as effectively as it should. Whilst ‘Big Bacon Vortex’, as part of an album, COULD work to a degree (depending on the person’s feelings about overly glitch sample work and slow twisting downtempo stuff), on its own as a standalone track, it falls flat on its face. Also, the album closer ‘Tripping Out’ was a bit weak as a finale I thought, and if ‘Paranoia…’ had been the final track I think a far more lasting impression would have be made on the audience.

But is it worth the four dollars asking price? In every fucking way. This album is great. The fifty four minutes whizzed by with a great amount of enjoyment, and the progressive and psychedelically layered approach ‘Starpilot’ has taken here give the release a lot of replay value. On top of that, the songs are just plain memorable and REALLY well written. Yes, some of the tracks I wasn’t a fan of, but my tastes are not everyone’s, and on top of that, the pace surrounding the mid-season dip pushes you through it without a second of dull audio. Definitely worth both your time and money, ‘Starpilot’ has really reached a new golialithic height with this release, and finally spat out the amazing promise he has always shown. So do YOURSELF a favour and get this now!!!

Tracklist:

1. Freefly

2. Vailixi

3. Space Cadet

4. Amputated Fist

5. Big Bacon Vortex

6. Death Is Dead/Shedding Spores

7. Ha Ha Ha Haters

8. Feisty Robot

9. Paranoia Is A Liar

10. Tripping Out

Psifork- No Ordinary Trifle

Psifork- No Ordinary Trifle

I’ve always been a HUGE fan of glitch music. However, the line between good glitch music and bad glitch music is always a fine one, which may be one of the reasons I have such an attraction to it, because when you do find a good glitch release it’s going to be pure golden. Here is one such golden release.

What really sets this release apart however, is the application of bass and general compositional prowess in the releases’ construction and structure of the songs. For example, ‘Bee-Itch’ starts as the release means to continue, with a glitchathon introduction followed by snaking glitchy melody coupled by a writhing and booty-shakin’ bassline.

Six tracks, and moderately lengthened ones too, may seem a bit foreboding for a glitch-based release (let’s face it, it’s not the easiest of genres to consume), but the difference and variety in tracks and even within tracks doesn’t bog the release down too much at all. Just as the release starts to drag slightly, the mid-section of ‘f#_wH17_HIP’ pulls you back into enjoying the release (with what is in my opinion the highlight of the release) before slowly sinking itself back into a full glitch-‘dance’ track with ‘Gloop~GlOOp~Gl00p’. Whilst you may think by listening to the aforementioned two tracks that Psifork may do better to shorten his introduction and get to the “action” quicker, I found the slow, and enjoyable, plod towards the inevitable hooks to be extremely worthwhile.  

EP closer ‘The Road Ah34d (Is Vast And Open)’ polished it off perfectly for me, with an easily danceable slow and drawn out syncopated drum pattern coupled with an unforgettable motif and perfectly complimentary bassline. Whilst this release may not be for everyone, and if you haven’t enjoyed glitch before this certainly won’t change your opinion of the genre, it is still an incredibly strong release with a hella lot going for it, though the emission of ‘March of Demoralization’ may have led to a smoother listen. Definitely a release WELL worth checking out!!!

Tracklist:
1. Bee-Itch
2. :Meaty:
3. f#_wH17_H1P
4. Gloop~GlOOp~Gl00p
5. March Of Demoralization
6. The Road Ah34d (is vast and open)

The Release can be found for free on his bandcamp right here.