Data Breaker

Seattle producer David Farrell’s Module project works in that
diminishing field of electro that conjures ominous atmospheres through
analog gear. His tracks on the forthcoming full-length Clouded
Descent (which still doesn’t have a label) recall the ill
robotic funk cranked out by mysterious Detroit artists like
Drexciya, AUX 88, Dopplereffekt, Ectomorph, and Elektroids. Queasy
synth tones and irritable bass frequencies oscillate and spasm over
forbidding funk beats. Against the odds, Module’s futuristic
expressions—transported from the 1990s’ electronic-music
vanguard’s vision of the future—still scintillate.

Farrell eschewed audio editing and VSTs for Clouded Descent,
creating all 13 cuts with hardware manufactured by Jomox, DSI,
Technosaurus, Nord, and Electro-
Harmonix. (I’ll wait for the gear
geeks among you to wipe the drool off your keyboards.) The results show
the extreme care Farrell’s taken over a four-year period
(2002–2006) to craft these pieces. But Farrell stresses that “the
live set is a more stripped-down, beats-and-riffs version of my
sound—more similar to the track ‘Requiem’ that I posted on the
Module MySpace page.”

For a while, there was talk of Ectomorph’s Brendan M. Gillen releasing some of Farrell’s tracks on his Interdimensional
Transmissions label, but it didn’t pan out. It’s kind of strange
that this music remains in release limbo, but it still carries a sort
of covered-in-Motor-City-industrial-grime intrigue that will resonate
especially among analog-forever types.

•••

Seattle MC Tulsi doesn’t receive the degree of shine some
other local rappers attract, but his mic skills are tight and deserve
to puncture many more receptive ears than they’re currently reaching.
Tulsi’s hiphop persona is an everyman going through everyday struggles,
an underdog striving to overcome mundane shit that gnaws away at a
significant chunk of the population on the regular. On his two
full-lengths—2006’s Fresh Points on Life and 2007’s
Waterflow—Tulsi benefits from his producers’
true-school funk imbued with soul that’s gimmick- and bling-free. This
approach is exemplified by “The Bullet” (from Waterflow).
Producer Confidence—a solid Premier/Pete Rock/Large
Professor disciple—buttresses Tulsi’s True Crime tale with
slick Bo Hansson–ian guitar licks, distant Rotary
Connection–esque female backup vocals, and one of those funk
breaks for which collectors spend three figures to score the original
7-inch from where it derives.

Tulsi currently has two releases ready for mastering in December:
the Nothing to No.One EP (produced by the great
loco local beatmaker Specs One) and his third
full-length, Cold Smoke. They’re part of his master plan
to burnish those Golden Age hiphop verities to an even higher gleam.