No Eyed Bird

Two chaps from the UK since 1996, ISAN (Integrated Services Analogue Network)
is often compared to Boards of Canada. Hearing the album reminds me of the soft electronic tracks from Radiohead. PDIP features short digestible pieces for easy access into their world with a quick escape hatch. The melodic and warm electronica stays simple and dreamy Tracks are quite similar and feel orchestrated in the way the melodies play off of one another from beginning to end. For instance, track 11. Seven Mile Marker uses the same 4 notes of the melody of Track 1. Look and Yes, just in a different key. There are no harsh sounds on this disc. Tracks are made completely of manipulated electronic sounds that mimic soft bass, afro/cuban style drums, bells, metronome (Yttrium) and finger-snapping (Corundum). The album has a bit of white noise feel to it even becomes borderline New Age with track 10. Stickland. The good thing about plans drawn in pencil is that they can be constantly changed, the drawback that it all can just as easily be erased.

-johnny darko

Led by Brazilian MTV VeeJay Joao Gordo (Fat John) Ratos de Porao (Basement Rats) have been assaulting ears since the early 1980’s. The band isn’t just another metal band, as this album successfully merges many elements of skate-punk, and hardcore/thrash. Two singers give the band the range to genre blend, focusing mainly on fusing punk and hardcore with metal vocals. Tracks stay around 2 minutes each, longer and more meloic than grind by The Locust, yet shorter and less free than thrashy Converge tracks. Enjoy blast beats, a few hardcore breakdowns, high-pitch sceams, rushed tempos, gang-vocals (Track 6. H.I.D.H.), punk drumming intros and guitar wails, and even some early Metallica-esk songs (Track 3. Expresso Da Escravidao) I’d love to read the lyrics and although Alternative Tentacles assures me they sing about day to day life in Sao Paolo, Brazil, I tend to think otherwise with tracks names like Pedofilia Santa. The bands website offers translated lyrics, however the site would not load. Perhaps try again at (www.ratos.com.br/lyrics).

-johnny darko

Noise record solo project by Sailor Winters featuring loops and analog “black noise”. Combine side A and B to make the whole track. Play it on 45 rpm! Side A opens with a haunting drum beat echoing a hellish drone and joined with curdled, monotonous grunts, so distorted that one message becomes clear: It is coming from the seediest pits of hell! Tracks like this should replace the phony ’scary’ soundtracks of alien videogames like Doom and Halo. Try to imagine a lawnmower running over a high school marching band stuck in a pit of tar, sluggish and sticky but constant in its carnage. No samples were used on the album, and lyrics accompany the 7 inch insert.

-johnny darko

Recording in 2003 and released on a small vinyl only label Seventh Rule in 2004, Elephantine (LP) is a special 180 gram record that is complete in its analog nature on vinyl. (cd version by Dopamine/Amalagate). The album is very hardcore heavy with stoner doom guitars and slowing tempos. Often compared to early Cave-In and Botch, with influences from the Melvins and Black Sabbath. While not vocally related at all, comparisons to math-y Hot Snakes can also be made. Now on Alternative Tentacles, Akimbo keeps the Math rock influence alive with its ‘06 album Forging Steel and Laying Stone. Heavy in guitar riffs and anti-hardcore instrumental breakdowns, expect lightning tempo shifts and dueling single note guitar ditties. Its difficult the pin the band down into the hardcore genre completely but you can count on an extreme performance that grooves like rock.

-johnny darko