Blogarhythms

All this talk of electro-acoustic hybrids, the fusing of analog and digital instrumentation and the fusion of human emotions & mechanical rhythms has been fine and dandy. But sometimes beats just need to be beats! Even when those beats masquerade as “songs.” And yes, even when the composer of those “songs” calls on a retinue of vintage synthesizers, keyboard instruments, both electric and acoustic guitars, a drum set and a melodica to augment the computers, midi percussion centers, drum machines, turntables and “records with breaks” with which he plies his beatcraft.

Whether he plays instruments other than samplers and drum machines, considers himself a “musician” rather than a “beatmaker” or thinks of his compositions as “songs” rather than “beats” is inconsequential though since avant-garde Hip-Hop producer Alias (born Brendon Whitney) — a founding member of the Anticon collective — is quite plain as to where his true affections lie. No matter how experimental his productions may be, or how musical his sound collages of samples, breakbeats and live instrumentation might be, when he goes and titles one of the tracks from his newest LP Resurgam “I Heart Drum Machines” there can be no questions that “the beat” remains of utmost importance to him.

The album’s title on the other hand isn’t necessarily a reflection of Alias’ music but a reference to the New England-born beatmaker’s return to Portland, Maine after nearly 10 years spent living and working in Oakland, California. A Latin word meaning “I will rise again,” Resurgam is in fact the motto of Maine’s largest city, whose seal even depicts a Phoenix rising out of the ashes. And while such notions of cyclical rebirth — which could serve as a metaphor for the necromantic recycling practiced by sampled-based producers of Alias’ ilk — might conjure up images of fire and its accompanying heat, much of the music on the album seems to have more in common with the chillier Fall and Winter climates familiar to natives of the Northeast.

I’ve long been a fan of Alias’s productions and remixes and was particularly fond of Brookland/Oaklyn, his 2006 collaborative effort with Brooklyn-based vocalist Tarsier, as well as his reworking of John Vanderslice’s “Exodus Damage.” On Resurgam he’s joined by fellow Anticon stalwart and Blogarhythms darling Yoni Wolf of WHY? and Massachusetts-born, Los Angeles-based Indie/Folktronica artist Hrishikesh Hirway a.k.a. The One AM Radio, of whom I’ve been a devotee since hearing the single “Witness” from his 2004 LP A Name Writ In Water. The pair of tunes resulting from these collaborations happen to be two of my favorite selections from what is on the whole an outstanding album as a whole.

A tinkling xylophone adds a childlike playfulness to the thumping programmed kick drum, squishy synthesizers, chittering hats, claps and punky riffing of my favorite of the two collaborative joints “Well Water Black,” which features the vocal, bass guitar and Rhodes skills of Yoni Wolf. Wolf’s is one of my favorite voices in either the contemporary Indie-Rock or avant-Rap genres, both for how it sounds and what it says. Thankfully he splits the song in two, performing half in his signature falsetto and half in his stoic spoken-voice too, kicking rhymes after the style which first made me take notice of him over the micro-edited snare fills and cymbals of a familiarly crashing breakbeat. Strange as it may sound, the song’s mix of dance-influenced programming and electronics, Rock guitar riffs, Soul/Jazz keyboard underpinnings, “chopped and screwed” vocal effects and Hip-Hop breaks makes it feel like the sort of track Santogold would make her own.

Alias “Well Water Black” feat. Yoni Wolf of WHY?

The clap-a-long snow-day piano ballad “The Weathering” benefits from Hirway’s hushed vocals, choppily-edited acoustic guitars, a booming drum machine beat and the stately peals of a brass section. It’s ornate in it’s lush orchestration, charming in its home-spun folkiness, and head-noddingly modern in it’s bass-heavy thump.  For all of that it sounds like the sort of glitched-out electro-acoustic fireside Folk-Hop I’d like to hear Leslie Feist sentimentally meandering atop.

The straightforward instrumental entries aren’t to be neglected either though.  “New to a Few” (where Alias cuts up an old Alkaholiks acapella to spell out his name), the beatbox-sampling “M.G. Jack” (which blurs the line between abstract Hip-Hop, old-school Electro, Cali Psych-Folk and the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie), “Death Watch” (which is like Morricone plus Shoegaze times Dubstep) the Prefuse-esque “Place of No More Choices,” and the spooky “Justamachine” (which plays like “Don’t Sweat the Technique” remixed by Vangelis and Moroder) stand out in my mind.  But all serve to illustrate that stutter and glitch can be every bit as musically essential as chord and riff.