from: cracked webzine

various artists - now 01
underscan records

calling a compilation of electronic music "now" is quite obvious but also bold bordering on arrogant. of couse, electronic music is the dish of the day, but who wants to claim the yellow shirt for real? there is just too much variety, and this compilation is proof of that. so i'll take this "now" as documenting the space of electronic music occupied by underscan records, which also offers a lot of variety as opposed to the majority of small electronic labels, that stay close to a certain style. the combining elements of artists on underscan records are more in a feeling for textures and landscapes formed from sound and in an aspired attitude of finding a singular approach towards production.

i want to take this opportunity to say thank you to underscan records, once again, for releasing the beautiful ep "all my love" by rod, which was the highlight of the electronic music part of my dj set on saturday night of bulbul's fitze fatze. and also for starting a series of 12"-compilations, this one here being number one. there will be three more parts with artists such as rod, dalezy, scanner, everest, fibla, f. bretschneider, and more. as you can see, quite a wide variety of styles and approaches, and if the label is able to keep the level of quality of the first issue, i am sure to check out the other three as well (and not at all for completist record collector's reasons).

"keep your head above water" by gram is my favorite track on here, due to its fat, steady and slow pounding bass sound with some distorted crackling noises mixed in as beats. and except for some bleeps and peeps, some wave sounds and some more pre-fabricated samples here and there that's it for the whole track. sounds boring? well, it isn't. not at all, because of the atmosphere of slowly sinking below the surface. it is not eerie or dark, more like floating in a weird dream that consists of only one colour, with a few sparks of the same color but in different shades busting in the corners at times. but i am, as they say, addicted to bass-sounds. from the melvins to sunn0))) and from si.begg to akufen, i don't care where the frequency comes from, as long as it is low.

it is impossible to rank the remaining three tracks, because they are all good in their own way and practically incomparable. if it weren't for the bass-sounds, i wouldn't have put gram on the podest as well. but as it comes, "atmachb" by pytlik also has a nice bass/synthie-drum-rhythm-complex, that changes over time. this one is drenched in synthie-keyboard-sounds that float around the room in a dreamlike state. maybe a little too synthetical or artificial for my tastes that were spoiled by mitchell akiyama's great "night is a weed…" album about a year ago and which featured "real" piano. mind you, it is not the origin of the sound, that i prefer, but the sound. actually, if pytlik would have used a regular or traditional piano sound instead of the more electronic one, i would never have noticed. anyway, "atmachb" has a similar feeling of floating in a dream as "keep your head above water" and there is nothing to complain about.

the other two tracks are faster and more about destroying expectations of percussive elements. "elz zupper" by somshit, mangles its rhythms, plays around with them and then, after about half of the track, throws in a layer of keyboard sounds, maybe because he got bored with the rest. the opposition of distorted rhythms and harmonic keyboards is definitely interesting and worthwhile, the track would have worked without it as well, though. but you should never reject unexpected developments as such. well, in music, that is. in real life, i usually hate surprises, but that is a completely different issue. the fourth track, "brim" by funckarma, is the most distorted, percussive and fastest song on here. it relies heavily on the fast and complex contrasts coming from clashing drumparts together. it is hectic, it is dizzy, it is making you nervous and you'll like it. but is is never plain harsh distortion or provocation, but sounds very refined and produced in detail and makes me wonder why i haven't heard of autechre in so many months.

the label "idm" for music has always remained somewhat of a mystery to me, which i attribute in fair shares to not getting out as much as i used to and to my complete and utter ignorance towards musical labels (though i have to use them a lot myself) and what is what. so i'll file this under electronica and by having to search for records i find a lot of stuff to listen to.