Music: Mass at Dawn "Trimutation" 3" CD-R

Ignoring the fact that the three-inch CD-R is easily the most insufferable medium on which modern "underground" music is released, and that this, like most Mass at Dawn releases, seems slightly guilty of placing vintage-gear-credibility ahead of actual musicality, this thing is really pretty good.

Soft distorted drum machine opens "Cycle of Movement", track 1, over which octave-arping, gently losing focus synths play, all unruly like. It's all head-nodding, out-of-phase club music for doctoral students in ethno-linguistics or post-Lacanian psychology. It's cold and unnerving, but human in its imperfection. The beat is sort of front-loaded, too heavy on the 1, which only becomes apparent by the end of the track. It's a creeping imperfection that's nice once you notice, eye-opening, even.

Track 2, "Demons of Fire" starts with a gnarly drone, passed down from that cycling analog octave-jump on track 1, but more muddled. Then beautifully distorted drums and Dylan Simon's psychotically distorted monotonal narrative enter and from here it's just a wrecklessly thought-out mess of of dirty 60s nightmare. Synth patterns are dominated by the slow-charging drums and it's head-back-Manson Family ICK.

Maybe it could be a little more dynamic, but analog purity gets the best of MaD. If well-mastered, this could be 7" of the year.

Nice packaging from Kimberly Dawn, but again, it's a tiny little baby CD, so have the foresight to rip it into iTunes before it gets lost under your couch.

Music: Ayebawl CD-R

A few times, in my general day-to-day internet reading, I've come across the phrase "Active Rock". It's pretty context-less to me, having abandoned commercial (and mostly all) radio for quite a few years. I imagine it though: the vocals are all shouted or screamed, the sharp distortion on the guitars is alternately piercing and crunchy (as described by the ads for FX pedals I've never used or heard,) the drumming may or may not involve a double kick drum pedal.

Realistically, the "Active Rock" I've read about contains up to one of these characteristics, with none of the 'tude implied. I mean, realistically the "Active Rock" I've read about is about as corporation-contrived as, say, Backstreet Boys. "Active Rock" is an ugly phrase. But let's say for a minute that it isn't, OK? That it fucking means what it says it means.

Ayebawl is fucking active rock.

Like, Tom George and Lukin Nunn, trading off on vocals, Lukin's screach is especially nuts, but exacting still and double tracked (this whole thing has a real nice, clean studio-quality,) and the guitars, man. Matt Bach's just a killer lead player. Everything's so composed, controlled, but it rips hard. And as drumming goes, there's a lot of pounding, but the number of hits and the speed never betray precision.

It's an intelligent hard core album sort of. All the thrash with none of the bonehead bullshit. Its violence is more visceral than bludgeoning, (and it is pretty fucking violent.) If you think Motorhead are pretty good, but kind of old fashioned, check it out.

Nine crazy tracks. Crazy Ed Gein artwork. Crazy, man!

Music: Gnarlwhal "Duane" CD-R

Purveyors of Progged-out Hardcore, the Little Hamilton-stapled Gnarwhal come at this 14-track (three of them interludes,) CD-album with hardened fucking Pro-chops and a "shit, whatever" attitude that jams pretty damn hard.

The angular guitars never stop, and underneath pointillistic bass and of course, Tyler Coburn's frantic-sounding but dead-accurate drumming push, pull and drive, endlessly forward.

This is some real front lobe music; it rewards close, attentive listening, and in this way it's "difficult", even though it's mostly-tonal and full of trope-based guitar techniques:

What's interesting is the disperation of the tropes: "jock-off" metal finger-tapping collides with "angst-and-fury" hardcore riffing collides with "Anglo-serious" prog collides with weirdo deconstructed pop. In this way, it's like a Zorn/Bungle assemblage, but really more cohesive than a lot of those guys' music due to the steady instrumentation/unified aesthetic.

There are lots of quick stops, changes in key, rhythmic feel, tempo, just about everything. This whole album is full of extremely complex music that hangs together well. Again, the drumming is pretty amazing throughout.

Call this Chin-Scratching Hardcore or Pop-Metal, I'm not sure. Self released, bear-themed art with jewel-case. Recomended!

Music: John Westberry "Tyrjedza" CD-R

Unquestionably one of Nashville's finest drummers working in the underground, or mostly not working in... Westberry is fairly emersed in the Mainstream Jazz house-show establishment known as Jazz 948, and you might even find him onstage at Green Hills Old-Money watering hole, F. Scott's.

And OK, I understand the attraction to playing that kind of music... It's technically demanding/satisfying and you can make a buck.

But JW at least has one ear pointed toward the "avant" on this release, a collection of mostly-slow burning "pretty" free jazz that occasionally hints at ambient music.

Every track is a duet with either trumpeter Edwin Santiago, or electric pianist Tyson Rodgers, and while Westberry's playing is uniformly subtle and in the pocket, the two other musician's contributions are variously effective and... not.

Rodgers' frantic playing on "Unfinished Look" and opener "Sprint" compliment JW's swift hands perfectly. This is about as good as free improv gets in Nashville. On other songs ("Build", "Abstract") he lets his Rhodes melt into ring-modulator and delay effects while Westberry deftly adds color, playing on the toms and accentuating different tones, pings and hisses from his cymbals, pretty badass. But on other tracks like "Light", the piano playing is so simple, white-keys-only kinda stuff, that you can hardly believe dude has a degree in performance from a major university, which I can only assume he does.

The ambient-piano isn't always bad. Take for example, "Stuttering" which features light-modal playing at first that eventually catches on itself and loops like a CD skipping at a particularly pleasant moment. It's like glitch-jazz, and that's pretty cool.

Similarly, Santiago's dark-toned, unpretentious trumpet-playing sounds beautiful and rich sometimes ("Conversation Piece B", "The Unwritten Rule"), but he sometimes flounders into obvious arpeggios that harken to well-worn standards, and these feel too much like accidents, like he doesn't know quite where to go next and is treading water. On moodier material like "Conversation Piece C", he seems to attempt Coltrane-Minor-seriousness from his horn while Westberry conjours similarly at the kit, all rolls and crashing cymbals like Love Supreme's "Resolution".

Westberry may have the technical chops, but he's not quite convincing in this mode of "heavy" Jazz. He's too polite. But then album-closer "Abrupt" may be the most "challenging" track and one of my favorites and it cuts off mid-riff. I wish it lasted longer!

Classy looking, totally-recycled sleeve and insert. Self-released.

Music: 84001 "525-617"/"Summer Sketches volume 2" CD-R

Pastoral delay-guitar. It's kind of lilting. It sounds like it's made by a fulfilled-feeling *person. And relayed like a meme, delayed, looped digital memesis.

Man, I really like 84001 as a continuously recording CD-R project. Their sole vinyl object sounds cool--don't get me wrong. But they shine in the little corners. Little bitrate-fatigue moments that make you stop all processes, close tabs.

And let yourself be baptized in melting synths/chunked-out sequencer drums.

This is trippy music at its core, deeply psychedelic: images displayed as sounds. Sonics that slide-upward the brain. Filter warbling like more than just a filter, they take little trains around the classy side of town. I get a feeling like very rich weirdos listen to this while they refurbish Renaiscance paintings and drink from their Gatorade water-fountains. It's a very comfortable feeling. Plush robes, ignoring cellphones.

There are daliances here that remind me too of some bourgoisie questionable ideas... Banjo/acoustic guitar jams like late night billiards sesh, don't recall what we talked about, eh, good. But I mean Phish are a real influence here, along with your Oneotrix and Balam Acab and Hypnophasia.

Free CD-Rs from the band. I'm guessing you could d/l these over at their site.

*"...fulfilled-feeling person," should not suggest much in the way of personification, like i.e. real persons. 84001's sound is beautiful in its purity of digital-tone. It's net-music. It's de-personification Matrix music. Recomended!