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techno music

Ozigiri – Floor Killer Death Machine (2024)

I have to take something back from my previous review. Ozigiri is not “constantly great”. I just got two emails from Bandcamp with two new Ozigiri releases, both released today.

First we have “Color Me Blood Pastel“. It does not come under the name “Ozigiri”, but under the name “わんぱくスレイヤー” (‘naughty slayer’). It could be another artist, but released on Ozigiri’s label. In any case, “Color Me Blood Pastel” is one of those annoying Japanese baby music breakcore albums. Not my cup of tea.

“Floor Killer Death Machine” on the other hand, is Ozigiri with almost no breaks. The album opens with a blast with the title track and the next 18 minutes is for a large part full speed Ozigiri. Great! Digital grindcore as it should sound.

Link: Ozigiri

v/a – 電​子​暴​力​大​集​会 (2024)

Ozigiri is one of my favourite discoveries of the last years. He makes an extremely fast, violent and energetic electronic form of grindcore. The weird mix of styles goes from beats up to 1000 BPM (let us just call that “splittercore” for convenience sake), faster beats (“extratone” because you no longer hear a beat, but a tone) with screamed vocals and guitar. Much faster than your average grindcore and way more energetic. Brilliantly neckbreaking.

There are more such violent projects coming from Japan, but none as constantly great as Ozigiri. It appears that Ozigiri was picked up by the already established project M1dy and the two indeed cooperate frequently. M1dy finds it funny to mix in children’s voices and happy melodies (making a truly insane version of hardcore techno) which I often find too cheerful. Ozigiri also does that sometimes, like on the mentioned last album. Fortunately not too often and on this compilation, no such thing.

I seems that I missed that the album “Party People Must Die” of last year was the first release on Ozigiri’s own new label わんぱくレコーズ (“Naughty Recordings”). The compilation “Electronic Violence” is the second. He gathered similar projects to create a 12 track, 32 minute digital release. “Electronic Violence” opens with a great Ozigiri track. After an intro, the tempo sets in with Ozigiri’s brutal violence. His buddy M1dy did a wonderful speedcore track. Then follow projects that I did not know (except for RedOgre and Qureless). There is the grindcore type electronic music of RoughSkreamZ, Qureless and Maruosa; the more hardcore techno sound of Coakira and sHimaU; the breakcore of Sabi, 鬼畜生 (“Bastard” is not as energetic as the other tracks) and Haizai Audio and the splittercore of RedOgre.

All in all this turns out to be a very enjoyable compilation. Ozigiri is certainly the best project here (to my ears), but most of the other tracks are great as well. If you are interested in some extremely energetic electronic music, check out this compilation. It is available through Bandcamp.

Link: Bandcamp

Current 909 – Enthusiasm (2021)

I literally only discovered Current 909 last week. I was making an “angstpop” playlist on Spotify and I was looking for less typical projects. So I started to scan Aufnahme + Wiedergabe releases to see if some of their older material would be fitting. I do not remember if I ever heard of the name Current 909, but I sure did not know their music.

The style is not really “angstpop”. Actually this project is better fitting in my “electronic doom” playlist. There I compile slow, minimalist, dark and gloomy techno such as the great project Oake.

Current 909 already has a few releases. Three on a label called “Atmosfear” that I do not know and “Enthusiasm” is the third release on A+W already.

So the new album (a 12″ with four tracks and a running time of 23 minutes) contains slow, minimalist, dark and gloomy techno. How fitting. I do not like it as much as the early material of Oake, but this is pretty good music, probably better than the later material of Oake.

In the early days of A+W I liked quite a few of their releases. Nowadays this is less often so, but I must say that with “Enthusiasm” the label has a great new release on their roster.

Link: Aufnahme + Wiedergabe

Broken Note – Exit The Void (2019)

There is another form of techno that I have been exploring the last years. “Dubstep” is a very slow form of techno, usually based on “drum & bass” type rhythms. Much of the music is annoying to me with female vocals and happy melodies, but there is also a more dirty side to the style.

I know “darkstep” is not the term to use, as that is closer to “drum and bass”, but the description is fitting for that style of “dubstep”. Sometimes I run into the description “filthstep”, I suppose that fits the bill.

“Broken Note” is not the slowest, dirtiest, occultist artist in the genre, but it does have some excellent releases. “Dubstep” is good enough of a description here. There are not the typical speedings-up and heavy breaks on “Exit The Void”, but here you have the steady rhythm in spite of the weird beats, the typical creaking sounds and minimalist approach. Maybe you can compare this release to the relatively known project Noisia.

If you want to further explore the genre, for a darker approach (also thematically) look for Substep Infrabass; somewhat more typical for the (darker) style are Datsik and Download.

Links: Broken Note, MethLab

Shxcxchcxsh – VOOO (2020)

There seems to be a great ‘new’ subgenre of techno music. I have written about it before in my reviews of Oake and Kerridge.

A style called “minimal techno” seems to have a rising popularity. It sounds like the name sounds, minimalist techno. Often danceable, sometimes even 4×4 beats. (Probably) within that “minimal techno” scene (if there is such a thing) there are also projects that lean towards an industrial sound, some of these projects take their speed even slower making dark, experimental, rhythmical, well, “industrial techno”. That description as been used for many years for the “hardcore” type of techno, but what Spotify seems to call “mandible” is slow, industrial techno.

The Swedish duo Shxcxchcxsh does not seem to offer an explanation (or even pronunciation) for their project name. Their releases and track titles are just as weird. The four tracks here are called “VOOO”, “OPPO”, “POPP” and “VVOV”.

Shxcxchcxsh sometimes has a somewhat industrial sound, like on the magnificent album “SsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSsSs”, on their latest, the sound is more typical ‘minimal techno’, so a simple rhythm and not much else. “VOOO” is not the duo’s best work, but I do want to draw your attention to the project, as their material is interesting. To me at least.

Links: Shxcxchcxsh, Mord

Oake – 47019 (2019)

Discogs.com

From hip Berlin comes yet another form of techno, a minimalist kind. The label Stroboscopic Artifacts has a series of 12″s with alchemical / esoteric covers, all called “Monad” and then numbered. Oake released such a “Monad”, numbered XXIV.

Another artist in these series is Tommy Four Seven who also has a label… 47, the label that released the latest Oake.

The artists in this genre do not just come from Berlin. When you look around there are quite a couple of more or less similar artists. See my review of Kerridge for a couple of names. Strangely enough, with quite a few artists making this dark, minimal and fairly industrial type of music, noone seems to have come up with a way to describe the style.

It is not that the music always leans towards a dark type of IDM (‘intelligent dance music’). Most projects also have tracks of a more minimal techno (hence: danceable) kind. Indeed, sometimes the sound is well described as “industrial techno”. Less convincing is the term “dub” as it has been in use for decades. Spotify / Everynoise seems to prefer the term “mandible“, but they seem to be the only ones using that term.

That said. As I said in my review of “Monas XXIV” I prefer the style of Oake of the first releases “Vollstreckung” (2013), “Offenbarung” (2013) amd “Auferstehung” (2014) which are much darker than what this duo made later. But “47019” is still a nice piece of dark techno music. Four tracks, spanning about half an hour.

This ‘genre’ / ‘scene’ keeps bringing me interesting new names every once in a while. Not all music of all artists sounds brilliant to me, but if you want to get an idea of style that I do like, listen to my Spotify playlist that I named “electronic doom” a couple of years ago when I quickly had to come up with a name and could not think of anything better.

Links: Oake, 47

Pryapisme ‎* Diabolicus Felinae Pandemonium (cd 2017)

It has been quite a while since I was looking for music similar to Igorrr. Igorrr makes completely mad breakcore with elements of any type of music imaginable, including metal. Pryapisme does something similar, but here the metal seems to be the basis and the breakcore elements ‘additions’.

Pryapisme is also completely insane. They go from extremely fast metal to jazz, orchestrations and classical music. They are even weirder than Carnival In Coal. There seem to be more of these weird metal outfits, but none are as strange (and good!) as Pryapisme. Their latest album is not their best in my opinion, but here is an album to try if you want something weird and different.

Links: Pryapisme, Apathia Records

Kerridge * Fatal Light Attraction (2016)

It does not happen often that I run into a musical genre that is totally new to me, but that still proves to be highly interesting. A while ago I stumbled upon OAKE. When reviewing that latest EP I wondered from what type of scene they would come. Some fringe of industrial, some fringe of techno, experimental doom, or something wholly different?

Then I ran into Kerridge, the sublime “Fatal Light Attraction”. Kerridge’s music is very minimalistic techno, somewhat industrial in approach with pulsating rhythms and noises and (sometimes depending on what beat catches your attention mostly) a very slow pace.
So I have started doing some research. Kerridge has a few releases out. Under the monicker Samuel Kerridge there are some more and the man also has a label: Contort. There are projects like Kerridge and not just a few either it seems. Lakker, Talker, We Will Fail, Ketev, Positive Centre, Rrose, Shifted, Silent Servant, Shapednoise, SHXCXCHCXSH (who I already knew) and more. Sometimes the music is fairly typical “minimal techno” with a steady beat and ‘happy sounds’, but some of these projects make a nice piece of fairly slow and dark music (and some combine the darker tracks with more ‘easy listening’ ones. This starts to look like a scene to sift through to see what I like. So far the journey has been quite interesting!

Not all music is as good as that of OAKE or Kerridge, but I must say that from most of the music that I listened to, I like the larger part and that is something that rarely happens to me when I find a new genre. What is a bit odd though, is that there is enough of this music to ‘be a scene’, there are labels that release this sort of material and yet I have not found a ‘name’ (‘tag’, ‘cabin’) for it. “Industrial techno” is a description that I run into frequently, but this term is also used for harder types of techno ((post-)gabber). “Minimalistic techno” is also already ‘in use’. The beats are not always such that I could use the term “IDM” (Kerridge has very regular beats for example). I do not know. Yet, perhaps.

Links: Kerridge, Downwards

OAKE * Monad XXIV (ep 2016)

Discogs.comA while ago I heard a magnificent track that made me think a new Galakthorrö project was on its way. It was a track with the mysterious title “Sehtohree Diin Chromtas Vehns” and it proved to be of a project called OAKE. The track can be found on the 2013 EP “Vollstreckung”. OAKE appears to be a couple from Germany and they have quite a couple of releases available.

These releases are usually vinyl and released on labels that I do not know, Downwards, Resistance / Restraint, Noiztank, Stroboscopic Artefacts. Apparently nowhere near the industrial scene, I have not seen a place that sells their releases.

The music of OAKE and dark and mysterious. Weird dark ambient and rhythmical soundscapes that sometimes seem to lean towards IDM, while at other times there is a guitar drone that makes me wonder if this is a very experimental doom project. Like I said, in dark and rhythmical moments, OAKE could be on Galakthorrö. Especially their oldest material (2013/4) is some of the best new music I heard in a while.

“Monad XXIV”, the latest release, is again an EP. It takes about half an hour and has four tracks. “Monad” is a bit more typically rhythmical ambient, not unlike some material from a label such as L.O.K.I.-Found; sometimes a bit ‘tribal’, sometimes more IDM. The music is certainly interesting, but I like the earlier material even better.

A project to keep an eye on!

Links: OAKE, Stroboscopic Artifacts

Venetian Snares‎ * My Love Is A Bulldozer (cd 2014)

A new Venetian Snares? What would mr. Funk come up with this time? “My Love…” opens rather jazzy. Not is not completely new and I must say that I can have Funk’s jazz pretty well. Soon it becomes clear that Venetian Snares again tried to make a pompous album with classical music too, so here we have two styles combined. Then there is the (by now familiar) mix between classical and breakbeats. Sometimes the beats go out of control, sometimes the music is easier to listen to. What is more, I have not heard each and every Snares album, but I do not really remember hearing the man himself sing. He has quite a peculiar voice. He is not a very good singer, but it is not like the vocals are out of tone with the music.
There are a couple of very good tracks. Other tracks are just allright. Overall “My Love Is a Bulldozer” is a nice album.
Links: Venetian Snares, Planet Mu