Black Dice : Repo
There is a saying I know that tells us that the future can be as close to us as one second or as far away from us as five minutes; pornography on the other hand is always right now. But what of futuristic pornography? Is it yet another discontented ghost of our shitty civilization that wafts listlessly on a path devoid of road signs? Lo, the future porn is here, Black Dice has made that which could not have been seen able to be seen.
My point is clear when one hears the works. Pornographic scoring in the contemporary post-Behind the Green Door age is no large feat. From what I gather it must be no more repetitive than the gyrations and no more interesting than the parts making them. One only need create a solid, disposable beat interspersed with laser sounds and the John Williams of fuck flicks one is made. But even then pornography will only be able to go up. Black Dice provide a fine blueprint that will serve to composers as their John Cage, their Philip Glass.
Black Dice, in the simplest way to put it, are welders of rhythmic beats and buzzing noises. They take what may or may not have been components of Northern Soul records and other disco artifacts and give them a kind of Ed Gein treatment. They bludgeon the sounds, hang them upside down in their “sound barn” open them up, strip off the skin and wear it while utilizing all that it held inside for their own pleasure. Some tracks seem like scratched records of other songs. It would be bizarre if it hadn’t been done in earlier instances by early industrial artists, but it does not leave interest wanting. Instead of confronting the listener, as was the modus operandi of most industrial manipulators, they do their part to enchant them with odd sounds and bits of random street dialogue made into dances beats. The effect is sexy but also aggressive to the point of creepiness with considerable allure, a near-perfect representation of the direction of the times, from pornography to the White House. Even the titles bear pornographic resemblance: “Nite Creme,” “Glazin,” “Ten Inches,” “Ultra Vomit Craze” and “Gag Shack.”
Of course most people won’t see the music that way. Today’s perverts, who are fast on medium, are not so fast on aesthetic detail, and it shall be a decade or two before they catch on. However interesting and idiosyncratic the songcraft of Black Dice may be, the clashing and thrashing that the compositions will often produce given the countless outside sources the sounds come from will be more likely to confound rather than enchant or make hard. Some of the world’s folk, easily flustered pink by busy life, will not think otherwise with busy music.
Similar Albums:
Animal Collective – Here Comes the Indian
Excepter – Debt Dept
Soft Circle – Full Bloom
Download at 