Numbers – In My Mind All the Time 6.5

Maybe I’m reviewing this a little too late; the jerky rhythm punk might be finished by now. Despite this problem, I re-listened to this tiny album/EP and remembered why I enjoyed these guys in the first place. Eventually they even evolved onto writing full-fledged songs, but here they are clearly in the short bursts mode here.

                Even though a lot of this album sounds a bit expendable, there’s enough originality to save it. Featuring prominent in the recording are a broken sounding synthesizer and elementary drums set. The vocals are drunken and shouted. Within these self-imposed limitations, they are able to craft some surprisingly sweet pop hooks. 

                Tigerbeat6 should have decided to go down this route a little more, and branch out the way that Warp did with its rock acts. I forgive them though, since they are a much smaller label with far less clout. Probably the best tracks on here would be the ear-candy of “Anything” and the surprisingly different droning end “Feelings” which sort of signaled the longer form songs they explore on later recordings.

Lesser/Kid606 – Split 8.8

Vinyl Communications probably did the best thing possible by releasing this split. Not only does it offer a snapshot at these two artists in their prime but it also ended up being ahead of the curve on this kind of chaos-ridden glitch music.

When I first heard this, I kind of got blown away by the quality and the sheer strangeness. It is like the most digital punk stuff I’d ever heard. Lesser began the split with two long and very abstract pieces. Random fragments of drum programming, shards of noise, all filed under the most obnoxious names he could think of. I mean, “Produced by Giorgio Moroder” for an abstract and repetitious noise track? Yeah, I think that disco purveyor really had something to do with this.

Years later, upon finding this little CD in one of my spindles, I decided to give it another listen, to see if it held up against the test of time. Listening to it now, I realize that is very much a yes. For both of the artists involved, this is probably some of my favorite material from either of them.

Lesser’s side stands up well, the “Speed for Gavin (AMF Cover)” being one of the weirdest things, mixing up industrial with ridiculous little samples. Example: “You sell fish here” and “Blessing some guy from San Diego”. There’s happier moments from Lesser as well, like “From-Ace Baby! To-Dad” and the surreal carnival of “Kid Tested, Mother Approved”. Jason Doerck sort of mixes together the high and low culture (drum machines and abstract noise) into some weird mix.

Kid606’s side is excellent. This is coming from his more abstract phase in his music before he took the lazy route of imitation dance music. Around this time he had “Down with the Scene” out and figured his life would be better off if he dropped out of school. Oddly, it was. Miguel includes some bizarre, distorted melodies like in “Hunting for Affection” and the demented ho-down of “Catch a Lucky Star”.  It was this release that even got me into a lot of other Tigerbeat6 stuff, before it descended down to just another boutique record label.

Overall, I’m pleasantly surprised that after revisiting this album over a decade later, it still works. This is an approach most electronic artists have failed to take. And why they haven’t is probably the million dollar question for me.