| October 2006 news
October 31, 2006
COSMIC SAMBA
• tube'|054 - Line Noise - Spacedust Planet
«From Florida comes Rudy Gonzalez, a young Brazilian-American producer who is true to his origins. Line Noise's release 'Spacedust Planet' is a two parts release, each one divided into three other sub-parts, but you should listen to each of the three parts without track intervals. Rudy combines Funk and Samba inspired percussion with glitchy 8bit effects, breaks and synth moods which are usually found in old and not-so-old works of Intelligent Dance Music.
Most of 'Funk Litmus (Part I)' is assembled with the aid of the Samba-like rhythms I speak of earlier, building up its complexity until close to the end of the track, when it joins into 'Part II' and works its way off into a different set of beats, aesthetically closer to IDM, shifting in style - going back to the Samba beat a couple of times - until it turns into the last part, 'Part III' which sounds like a 'cleaner' version of 'Part II'. More ambient grooves, less rhythm patterns and with a splice of nostalgia.
'Coconut Portals' is a different exercise. Rudy adds an 80's electric bass almost right from the beginning which invites us to dance - or at least to nod. Again, it grows complex through the second part. The bass takes some time off and the beat turns dry and heavy. 'Part III' comes sooner than we think - Funk Litmus is a bigger track - and comes descending, taking down some beats and upping some keyboards.
Rudy also runs Lacedmilk Technologies netlabel.» - Pedro Leitão
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October 21, 2006
SKETCHES OF AN ORDINARY LIFE
• tube'|053 - Landfill - Panorama de uma vida normal
«As your mind gently awakes to the sound of the morning buzzer, as you stretch your arms and clear your throat, a newborn day enters through the cracks of the window, paving the way for our conscious premonition of the future that is about to happen. This is the panorama for any ordinary day.
This album opens with a soft voice whispering a wake-up call in your ear, but it quickly turns into a disturbing landscape, obliging you to open your eyes and acknowledge the fact that there is a life to carry through another day. The monotonous sound of routine reappears as you leave home, balancing through the streets and roads in a desperate hurry to get to nothing dissimilar to yesterday.
It is life in all its extent that is expressed in the mindtripping sounds of Landfill’s first recording. The tone is definitely a post-rock one, with clear Barrett-esque influences, space-rock with its feet on the ground, contradictions and moodswinging atmospheres that allure you to reflection or abstraction, love and hate or everything else you might feel or not.
Cowboys and factory workers dancing in the streets of a long-gone country, as Iceland meets South America and China – this is the soundtrack to any kind of living person in its most absurd and realistic form. The odyssey is not a pretentious one, it leads you only to everything you know, as your knowledge is always limited to everything you conceive as real or imaginary, and the definition of both – and dream...
With old-age keyboards floating on the back of our minds, the voices mumble unintelligible words as the guitars grow into the foreseeable chaos of the end of any given day. There is no illusion to follow, this is a dream as cruel as reality, with roads leading to wrong places, with obstacles around every single bend, and the wind whistling in every direction, assuring you that there is no right path to follow.
Banda Sonora Para Um Dia Normal (Soundtrack to an Ordinary Day) and Vida Constante (Constant Life) – a voyage into the subconscious states of the mind, into happiness and melancholy, rage and reason.
Mais Um Dia Igual (Another Similar Day) is a review of the day that is about to end, with its ups and downs, in and outs, or the lack of any of them.
As pragmatic and absurd as life can be, the journey is granted, whether you like it or not, for life is yours to decide, but only in small amounts.» - António Correia
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October 13, 2006
TEST TUBE - A WEBLOG
Yup, we joined blogworld at last. A blog was created to keep track of the radioshow tracklistings and other relevant issues.
URL is: http://testtube.monocromatica.com/blog
Tune in!
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October 11, 2006
SOME KIND OF GLITCH HOP
• tube'|052 - Con 7 - Don'thavemychance
«Laurent Lusseau returns to test tube with his strange recipe of abstract and non-linear electronica. 'Don'thavemychance' - again, titled after the tracklisting order - is a very short EP focused on voice patterns and percussion/rhythm experiences throughout.
In 'Don't' we can hear the main voice repeating the phrase 'Don't, have, my chance' over and over again, on top of other voices layered under distorted and very acute sounds. Disturbing.
'Have' continues somewhere where 'Don't' left. Another voice, different sounding, is repeating another phrase, something that I cannot understand. My french isn't perfect, but I know it's something weird. Again, several percussion effects punctuate this track, like clapping sounds and steel drums. Feedback screams and horns and various other agressive effects. Massive.
There's a continuous sound right from the beginning of 'My' that can be found on the first two tracks. Perhaps Laurent is telling us that they should be all together, sequencially, but this was not possible by some misterious reason. This is the most kind-of-ambient track. No percussion fuckups, nothing like that. But pretty much agressive like the previous two, oh yeah.
Hélas, and we're down to the last one. Just when this was starting to sound really interesting. 'Chance' has many of the sound elements used previously, but somehow managed to integrate some basic notions of melody and harmony without killing the agressive base that is Laurent's creative signature. This one is kinda Hip Hopish, actually. Dirty and rusty, reminding of some stuff that Daedelus and other beat experimentalists have done in the past. A real keeper! Nice one, Laurent!» - Pedro Leitão
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October 05, 2006
SOUNDCHECK THIS!
• tube'|051 - OCP - Sound Check
«OCP stands for Operador de Cabine Polivalente, an ongoing sound project by João Ricardo, a portuguese born world citizen. OCP has released before for the excellent half portuguese/half japanese MiMi Records and for the young but already great british Serein Net-audio Label. João Ricardo suits up his OCP moniker whenever he wants "(...)to develop uncommon sound textures/patterns/compositions taking different approaches, applying diverse techniques." He also produces as Pygar, together with his friend Hugo Olim.
Some months ago, João submitted this 'Sound Check' piece to Test Tube, asked me to listen to it and later to think about publishing it. Usually I like long pieces, yes, but this one got my special attention. This 55 minute track is not your typical drone-ambient-long-as-hell-track that makes you want to go to bed. No. 'Sound Check' has many different personalities inside its shell, many different mood shifts. It has ambient moments, noise and glitch parts, beat sequences, everything you can imagine in the abstract electronics genre. It's sad sometimes, but also has its bright and sunny moments. Taking its title literally, it could be a sound check for João's latest sound database, a work in progress for something else yet to be born. But it's already alive, trying to break the outside shell and mutate into that 'something else'.
One of my favorite sequences starts at minute 20, a funky electro/IDM driven dialogue that wants to pull you out of your chair and throw you into the dancefloor, but never makes the decision. Mighty, mighty soundcheck.» - Pedro Leitão
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October 04, 2006
OUR SPACE, YOUR SPACE
Since yesterday, we now have more disk space that we can handle. 200Gb! Yes, that much and, well, since we will never fill it up in this lifetime, we're offering all our listed and unlisted artists, free space for their own webpage or website. Completely free. For as long as we stay online.
Webpages will have URLs like 'monocromatica.com/netlabel/artist' or 'testtube.monocromatica.com/artist'.
Websites will have their own domain and they are the artists's responsability, of course, but the files will be hosted here, in a subfolder of our domain.
Send us an e-mail if you're interested in having free Test Tube space. We will offer 250 and 500Mb chunks of space. This is limited to the space we have available, so, be quick!
Peas,
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