Frank Riggio – Anamorphose (Spectraliquid)

Like a hungry spider, returning to its nest of venomous eggs, the effect-rich sound of Frank Riggio crawls up your skin, and sinks its fangs in to open up a healed scab beneath your scalp. This album is dark, cinematic, enormous and elaborate. It is absolutely impossible not to compare Riggio to Amon Tobin - so let me just get the similarities out of the way. Saturated with samples, dense percussion, and intense micro-programmed twists and turns through the intricate passages, Riggio seems to have taken the path where Tobin veered off to persuade a more experimental sound. So let us leave Tobin in the studio, composing another video game soundtrack, and turn our ears towards Riggio, who sprung up from the underground last year, like a fresh poisonous mushroom after an acid rain. Hailing out of Epinal (France), Riggio has been producing music since the age of 18. His influences include the above mentioned Amon Tobin, DJ Shadow, and Bonobo. In 2007, Riggio released his debut LP, Visible in Darkness. Soon after, his second digital LP, Symmetric Human Door, appeared on Australian net label, Omelette (available for free). He followed it up with another free digital 7-track release, Noise Thinking (Omelette, 2009), and in December, the Greek label, Spectraliquid, gave us the best Christmas present one would want - the third album from Frank Riggio, Anamorphose, available completely for FREE! What? I would have gladly paid money for this! I guess the motivation here is to fall in love with Riggio's sound - since he's got a fourth album on the way on Spectraliquid out in late Spring of 2010. And falling in love with this trip is easy! Full of orchestral stabs, agitated strings, and an arsenal of acoustic and digital percussion, Anamorphose is the lost score to my newly found nightmares. With nostalgic passages, scratching at my memory of abandoned dusty films, the beat treads on, like a rusty tank, smothering your neighbor's obscene American Girl doll into the cold oily mud of reality with its metal claws of freedom, fake lipstick and all... Apple orchards wither, as seen through the sepia filtered lens of an aged camera, then sink into the putrid ground to reveal the lonely scarecrow, its empty mouth dangling by a thread, in which the spider made its nest. The sound is so raw, I can draw these images all day. And the production is superb! The album is so good, it's tough to pick a favorite track! I mean, if I didn't tell you that this isn't Amon Tobin, I bet you wouldn't even know. Even the cover art for this and other albums along with the font, resembles the artwork of Supermodified (Ninja Tune 2000) and Foley Room (Ninja Tune, 2007). And I point that out with the greatest respect. While some may turn up their nose with accusations of a copycat, I happily proclaim - bring it on! More imitations of Amon Tobin, Aphex Twin, and Autechre (just to start with 'A's). These are the roots of evolution of music as it splinters into a million little pieces of sound. Permutations, anyone?

See also Two and a Half Questions with Frank Riggio

And don't forget, you can preview tracks from the album directly on Headphone Commute!

myspace.com/riggiofrank | frankriggio.com
myspace.com/spectraliquid | spectraliquid.com

Cardopusher - Mutant Dubstep Vol. 2 (Spectraliquid)

With half a dozen of twelve-inchers under his belt, and a full-length breakcore album Hippie Killers Don't Mind Jah Conversations (Peace Off, 2006), Luis Garbàn, aka Cardopusher, lands a tasteful EP on Spectraliquid, continuing the Athens based label's Mutant Dubstep series with Volume 2. Garbàn's previous output ranged from above mentioned breakcore, to gabber and ragga. Now he's trying his hand at dubstep, and very successfully, may I add. On this three track EP with an additional two remixes by Innasekt (Sneer and Sully) and Pacheko (Francisco Mejia Szilard), you can expect to hear clear influences of Garbàn's edgier side, grinding with those nasty sawtooth riffs through concrete onslaught of deeply resonating dark and dirty bass wobbles. The memory breaching melodies and hooks are screaming to be released onto the dance floor. With a saturation of dubstep tracks on the market, it's very difficult to pick out the standout tracks in the crowd. But you can be sure that Cardopusher's addition to the collection will be permanent. It's no wonder that Thom Yorke (yes, the one of Radiohead) included a remix of Cardopusher's track on his weekly music chart. While grabbing this colorful digipack from Spectraliquid, make sure to pick up the first volume in the series, kicked off by none other than Ebola (Ben Hudson). This is turning out to be a rather nice selection of releases from the predominantly breakcore influenced artists, and I'm looking forward to the volumes to follow. Meanwhile, be sure to pick up Cardopusher's second LP, Unity Means Power, released on brand spanking new Murder Channel Records.

myspace.com/cardopusher | cardopusher.com
myspace.com/spectraliquid | spectraliquid.com

Blackfilm - Blackfilm (Spectraliquid)

Dark and brooding, Blackfilm envelopes you like a thick fog creeping off a cooling swampland. I recall a quote by Jim Morrison (which got embedded in my brain after Emmanuel Top's 1994 single Turkish Bazaar) - "The music was new, black, polished chrome and came over the summer like liquid night". Blackfilm is the anonymous Hungarian artist on Spectraliquid Records, a Greek independent label organized by Mobthrow, Subheim, Katja and Xsoz. The self-titled debut album from Blackfilm is the label's only second release (first being an obligatory compilation, titled Konkrete, with a taste of things to come). And I believe it's off to a nice start. Blackfilm's sound is a bricolage of downtempo, breaks, instrumental hip-hop, and an excellent selection of sampled modern classical strings. The Amon Tobin reference was not accidental - Blackfilm indeed reminds me a lot of his earlier works. I would even be bold enough to declare that my sensitive ear picked up a few familiar samples (Stalingrad is an excellent example). That can only serve as a compliment from every direction for Blackfilm. I'm a big Amon Tobin fan and have been craving and begging for someone to defibrillate his pioneered sound. Of course Blackfilm introduces his own cinematic and orchestral elements that "move from fearsome, lonely frames to chaotic feelings of urban self-destruction." Spectraliquid goes a step further and brings in Volker Kahl (Kattoo) to master the album. And once you cross that line, there is no going back. The production is crispy, tight and menacing. Excellent soundtrack to contemplate your existence on. Highly recommended!



myspace.com/blackfilmmusic
myspace.com/spectraliquid | spectraliquid.com