Jessbeatz
Decoding Numberz

boomkat: ...‘F.T.N.W.O.’ (eff the new world order) first landed in 2012 as Sherard Ingram’s only album under the DJ Stingray 313 alias. It effectively, aesthetically, works as a follow-up to his preceding pair of Urban Tribe albums for Rephlex 2006-2007, and laid the ground for his superb NRSB-11 album with ex-Drexciyan Gerald Donald. It remains a masterclass in proper Detroit electro futurism, pushing the faster templates of jit in line with his Afro-futurist, sci-fi-skooled inspirations for a definitive record of darkside Motor City club intrigue with a wickedly pulpy narrative. Opening to scene-setting samples of George Bush and TV evangelists in Evil Agenda’, the album plays thru a noirish graphic novel allegory of electro from the OG source, channelling Drexicyan mythos and hydroelectric principles in muscular, yet tautly minimalist, constructions that have become Stingray’s hallmark of production. With shark-eyed tension the album swims from the underwater shadow-boxing of ‘Dark Arts’ to a killer cybernoir finale in ‘Remote Viewing’, taking in warehouse-shudder pulses on ‘Denial of Service’ and the hyper-rictus machine chatter of ‘No Knock’ beside cut-scenes such as ‘Lead From the Shadows’ that perfectly set up the classic electro ping-pong of ‘Reverse Engineering’ and nexx level 313 depths of ‘Image Search’.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS: ...Drop Shadow is the new album from New Zealand native Luke Rowell, and his first release under the Eyeliner name since 2015’s Buy Now (Beer on the Rug). The album is filled with highly composed MIDI pop music that covers a range of mood and emotion, from the uplifting Vince DiCola-esque opener to the beautiful digital vocal “ahh”s that merge into crashing waves at the end of “Keep Calm”. Rowell is using the language of instrumental dance and pop to express multiple themes, the first being personal loss and caring for a sick loved one, as reflected on the suite of songs from “Contact” to “Carry On”. At the albums center these songs form a sort of emotional core that also reframe lighter pieces like “Coffee News” as mini respites along the way.Drop Shadow also explores Rowell’s fascination with American and Japanese music culture and their many intersections, most evident to me on the upbeat “Drop Shadow” which utilizes the Korg Wavestatoion and M1 VST (which is the highest selling synth of all time in its hardware form) and lands somewhere between early house music, a Madonna instrumental, and something from a Nintendo 64 soundtrack.If the previous Eyeliner album LARP of Luxury can be seen as a sunrise record and BUY NOW as night time music, Drop Shadow goes from morning to night and back again. Songs like “Reverie” can feel bright and head-nodding on first listen, only to shift into a hopeful melancholy the second time through.

ORANGE MILK RECORDS:...Nick Storring's eighth album (and third release for Orange Milk Records) takes the one-person-orchestra approach for which he is acclaimed and translates it to a single instrument: the piano. Recorded on everything from the innards of an old upright piano to a Disklavier (a computer-controlled acoustic piano) housed at Yamaha's Toronto offices, and using playing techniques that span conventional to idiosyncratic, Storring conjures a vast and vivid colour palette. Music from 'Wéi 成为' was composed for the choreography of his frequent collaborator, Yvonne Ng and began its life in a residency at the Banff Centre in December 2017. Just like the unique movement vocabulary found in Ng's quintet dance Wéi 成为, Storring's copiously layered score moves fluidly between tender lyrical phrases and driving interlocking figures, and from thick textural swarms to supple transparency.