O9 – Church of the Ghetto P.C 7.7

Jesse Legg, some Oklahoma native, is responsible for the music behind O9. With this release, he left the music scene in a fever pitch. The music contained includes some of his best compositions, stuffed with all the muscle and melody he could muster.

All the songs are named after colors, for reasons not explained. The album title is a dedication of sorts to those Jesse knows who use ghetto PCs. He wants the music to be dedicated to their difficulties in using a near-broken, way-too-old computer. As someone who had a very ghetto pc until a few months ago, I relate completely to this sentiment. 

The music shows that it wasn’t written on an old computer. Each song shows off a real flair for flexible, beat-heavy music. “Red” uses Autechre’s technique of starting with near silence before it blasts off. Little melodies are thrown in as decoration, but there are a few pivotal moments where they take center stage. 

Most of the highlights are front-loaded in this album. Chaotic melodies take over in “Orange” and a pulsing rhythm rules over “Yellow”. But towards the end O9 treats us to probably one of the best tracks on here “Grey”. Here the melody slowly decays under so much distortion, only to be revved up again. This is an absolutely wonderful piece.

What takes away from these tracks' energy are the longer tracks. Those longer tracks lack the immediate impact of the shorter bits, and, had they been removed, might have resulted in a leaner, meaner album. 

Of course, for an artist who had released so little that is a minor concern. The album hits all the right spots, and it is a bit of a shame after this Schematic fell by the wayside.

Carlos Giffoni – Welcome Home 7.6

I’d like to say thank you to Hugo Chavez for bringing this guy our way. Perhaps Venezuela’s socialist revolution wasn’t ready for this. To be fair, most people aren’t.

This is an old recording by Carlos (keep in mind noise artists tend to be ridiculously prolific, so 5 years is like 10 years in noise time). Anyhow, this has a great amount of enthusiasm and development, already putting it leagues beyond your usual angst ridden bedroom noise artist.

Some of what eventually became “No Fun Acid” (another project of his) can be heard here, right from the track “Expectations”.  “4-trode events” mingles high end noise with random static and elastic sounds. “Bushwick” gets close to some sort of groove, as it kind of chugs along. 

“Who is home” produces a near-melody which it flirts with during its whole time. Perhaps if Schematic records had continued following their noisier instincts, they could have hosted this guy’s anarchy. Also, he does vary from other noise artists by remaining somewhat diverse in his range, going from beats to melody to pure glitching chaos.

Ultimately I’m glad he stayed on his own. By doing things his way, he’s created No Fun Fest and No Fun Productions, probably the most respected noise event and noise label respectively. I need to catch up with the rest of this guy’s output. Any suggestions would be appreciated.