I'm tired of using technologyListening to Load Blown, Black Dice's (MySpace) first album for new label Paw Tracks, the imprint owned by fellow free-formers/ex-touring partners Animal Collective. Black Dice's prior home was DFA records, where they released three albums (Beaches and Canyons, Creature Comforts, and Broken Ear Record - which features some truly eye-gouging artwork) and several singles and EPs, none more seminal than 2002's "Cone Toaster" 12-inch, a plinking, plonking, squeaking, skwonking soundscape that sounds like hip-hop by way of a George Herriman landscape. (Black Dice began life as a hardcore outfit in the Providence scene centered around RISD, but their allegedly violent past bears little sonic relation to their present work.) Even on a label with an aesthetic as far-reaching as DFA's, there was nothing that approximated the sheer "out-ness" of Black Dice's almost-Zen free-play approach; presumably Paw Tracks will offer a more accommodating hole for Black Dice's square peg.
Load Blown isn't really a "new" album, per se: "Manoman", "Gore", and "Toka Toka" made up the band's last DFA 12-inch release, while "Roll Up" and "Drool" comprised their first single for Paw Tracks. Yet there is enough unity of vision here that the label applies. The story of Black Dice since they abandoned hardcore's face-melting, ear splitting thrash - an approach still favored by fellow travelers Wolf Eyes (with whom BD produced a 2003 split LP) and Lightning Bolt (with whom BD shared former member Hisham Bharoocha) - has been the abnegation of the song form, and the long, slow process of reconstituting it. On Beaches and Canyons and Creature Comforts, Black Dice's songs had an improvised quality to them, like an experimental film where a camera is fixed upon a spot, and whatever wanders into frame becomes the finished product. With 2005's Broken Ear Record and attendant single "Smiling Off", a new sense of structure came into play; the compositions became more focused upon a central rhythm, around which the other sonic elements would loosely orbit. Load Blown progresses in this vein, with each track coming to a direct head almost straight away: the music is predictable in a way which is pleasing - you can nail it down in your head and get the hang of it while you're listening, keeping you mentally engaged. Tracks like "Roll Up" and "Gore" are still delightfully left field, but they're far from passive or impressionist; Black Dice are trying to take you somewhere with these songs, speaking in a kind of ur-pop tongue.
An interesting analog is Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam, another record trying to feel its way towards the pop form while preserving a kind of oblique, avant-garde whimsy. Indeed, AC's "Peacebone" single, with its percolating 8-bit synths, sounds like something of a not-too-distant cousin to the lusher electronic textures on Load Blown. Neither of these bands have any hopes (nor any prayers, I dare say) of breaking through to the mainstream, but they seem keen to maintain and expand upon their relation to it; and vice-versa perhaps. I'm probably not the only one to hear 50 Cent's "Ayo Technology" and draw a connection between what Nick Sylvester has termed Timbaland's "Ghosts and Goblins beat" and what's going on here.
Load Blown isn't really a "new" album, per se: "Manoman", "Gore", and "Toka Toka" made up the band's last DFA 12-inch release, while "Roll Up" and "Drool" comprised their first single for Paw Tracks. Yet there is enough unity of vision here that the label applies. The story of Black Dice since they abandoned hardcore's face-melting, ear splitting thrash - an approach still favored by fellow travelers Wolf Eyes (with whom BD produced a 2003 split LP) and Lightning Bolt (with whom BD shared former member Hisham Bharoocha) - has been the abnegation of the song form, and the long, slow process of reconstituting it. On Beaches and Canyons and Creature Comforts, Black Dice's songs had an improvised quality to them, like an experimental film where a camera is fixed upon a spot, and whatever wanders into frame becomes the finished product. With 2005's Broken Ear Record and attendant single "Smiling Off", a new sense of structure came into play; the compositions became more focused upon a central rhythm, around which the other sonic elements would loosely orbit. Load Blown progresses in this vein, with each track coming to a direct head almost straight away: the music is predictable in a way which is pleasing - you can nail it down in your head and get the hang of it while you're listening, keeping you mentally engaged. Tracks like "Roll Up" and "Gore" are still delightfully left field, but they're far from passive or impressionist; Black Dice are trying to take you somewhere with these songs, speaking in a kind of ur-pop tongue.
An interesting analog is Animal Collective's Strawberry Jam, another record trying to feel its way towards the pop form while preserving a kind of oblique, avant-garde whimsy. Indeed, AC's "Peacebone" single, with its percolating 8-bit synths, sounds like something of a not-too-distant cousin to the lusher electronic textures on Load Blown. Neither of these bands have any hopes (nor any prayers, I dare say) of breaking through to the mainstream, but they seem keen to maintain and expand upon their relation to it; and vice-versa perhaps. I'm probably not the only one to hear 50 Cent's "Ayo Technology" and draw a connection between what Nick Sylvester has termed Timbaland's "Ghosts and Goblins beat" and what's going on here.
