Two wrongs and
several rights

By JACK OATMON

As was the case in the ’90s, during the popular explosion of both new-school hip hop and club house beats, lately there has been a resurgence of producers who don’t understand either musical movement, and have thus decided that the only way to reconcile their confusion is to mix the two together, in hopes that alchemy begets innovation. I bar Technotronic, who fucking ruled, from this analogy. So I can’t say that I’m particularly interested in Sacramento’s Bird Peterson and his half-assed kneejerk house party jams, to be witnessed at the SAT this Saturday night. What I am interested in, though, are the groovy, gradual, energetic, epic, spacey sounds of DFA’s Shit Robot, also on the bill. Ah, what the hell, I’m sure I’ll enjoy the stupid hip-house guy too. But ’cuz it’s catchy, not ’cuz it’s good.

In album launches this week, the city’s most beloved screeching synthpunk trio, We Are Wolves, are busting out their latest installment of garage electro over two nights, Thursday and Friday, at le National, while local tech duo Death by Analog, comprised of DJs Driss Skali and Sad Mafioso, loose their debut EP of big-room beats at Parking tonight, Oct. 15, with a live PA performance. They’ll be joined by psychedelic microhouse guy Tom Pooks, head of Moovement, the record label releasing the Death by Analog EP. They’ll all be seen again the next night, Friday, at Circus Afterhours.

Earlier this year, Finnish genius Jori Hulkkonen produced an amazing video called “Diamonds of the Night” for his 10-man Roland TR-303 Acid Symphony Orchestra. It’s available at vimeo.com/5857637. I bring this up in anticipation of his upcoming album, Man From Earth, out on Turbo this month, which I’ll have more on soon. Lemme tell you, the album has been completely destroying my brain, so stay tuned.

WHERE’S MY NOBEL LITERATURE PRIZE?
jack.oatmon@gmail.com