Unicorn Hard-On/Container – split LP (Hot Releases/More Records)
Over the past year or so, there has been a paradigm shift in US basement level noise/improv scene, where many people involved in noise music, having spent the last decade or so rewiring effects pedals, wearing papier-mache costumes, abusing four track recorders, and making drones have turned all those electronics to a new purpose: making beat oriented dance music. I would guess that the reasons for this would be that harsh feedback/static/noise tropes, the Fort Thunder/Wham City-inspired neon aesthetic, and “new weird America” had all run themselves into the ground around the same time, and a lot of people were looking around for a new direction, all while mind blowing 12”s by UK experimental techno masters Shackleton, Demdike Stare, and Andy Stott came out alongside Drexcitya reissues, and pointed people in a beat/club direction through all the murk. This isn’t in itself a bad thing. I think that I would rather go to a basement noise show and dance than be yelled at by a guy wearing devil horns, but this class of US noise-turned-“outsider techno” has a lot of catching up to do with their counterparts overseas, where producers have been honing their craft for years and years. Instead, new tape and vinyl releases from this crowd are likened to watching the artists grow up in public, as they teach themselves the fundamentals of what makes a good techno track just that. This split LP by Container and Unicorn Hard-On is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Container is Nashville-based musician Ren Schofield, who used to play noise under the name God Willing, and is also in the wonderful four-track improv trio Form A Log, who I prefer to Container. Here he turns in one long slowly mutating but fairly static beat oriented piece called “Cauterize.” It’s perfectly enjoyable, but compared to the new Shackleton box set, it sounds like baby steps. Unicorn Hard-On is the stage name of Val Martino, who has been playing beat oriented noise music for a few years now, and was definitely ahead of this particular curve. Her side fares better than Container’s, with the addition of her ghostly phased vocals that make her beats she makes things a bit more interesting. This isn’t a bad record by any means, and certainly lights up the path for a stronger and more relevant domestic techno doctrine, but it sounds like the first steps of two artists who will hopefully turn out some experimental classics if they keep honing their craft. Some recent US techno releases by Outmode, Lazy Magnet, and even some tracks on the “outsider techno” tape compilation called Forced Sound Routine Volume Two released on Schofield’s own I Just Live Here imprint, have been really great, but until everyone involved catches up a bit, we’re in for a bunch of music that is, at best, mildly enjoyable. (http://www.hot-releases.org)
(Chris Strunk)
