Normal Nada the Krakmaxter, “Beautiful Chaos” (Nyege Nyege Tapes)
Guinea-Bissau-born Portuguese electronic-music producer Normal Nada the Krakmaxter has released his debut album, Tribal Progressive Heavy Metal, on the Ugandan label Nyege Nyege Tapes. (Say that fast five times.) That’s a lot to process for Westerners, but it’s worth the effort. The music here truly sounds new, writhing with unusual hybrid vigor. The title hints at this novel amalgamation, but there’s more to it than those elements.
As is the case with all releases on the phenomenal Nyege Nyege Tapes, the album’s full of dance tracks that are anything but status quo. “Up Bumbulum,” for example, bears odd metallic timbres and weird percussion counterpoint around its pounding 4/4 kick drums. The frenetic “Batida 2 Dance” sounds like a nervous breakdown on the dance floor, but with a drone tolling like a warped bell in the background. The title track is a wickedly noisy mutha, powered by oblong, galloping beats; it’s not like any “heavy metal” you’ve ever heard before, but rather almost like sci-fi-psych group Chrome, if they cared about club culture.
“Da Gamer” is peak-time techno in a pressure-cooker environment, so intense that it might make Jeff Mills break out in a cold sweat. “Alive” is hyper-pop run through a brutal techno thresher. Dig the contrast! “Victory Dance” is the funkiest cut here, but its meter is too twisted for genre traditionalists. You’ll need a chiropractor after head-nodding to it.
“Beautiful Chaos” ratatats with military steadfastness and comes embellished with an array of mechanical-malfunction noises, resulting in one of the most bizarre DJ weapons of recent times. To paraphrase James Brown, “Get on the fractured foot”!
Cloudland Canyon, “Future Perfect (Bad Decision)” (Medical Records)
Led by Tennessee producer/multi-instrumentalist Kip Uhlhorn, Cloudland Canyon have gone under-appreciated for 17 years, even though they’ve recorded for prestigious labels such as kranky, Holy Mountain, and Seattle’s Medical Records. Despite many lineup changes, Cloudland Canyon have maintained an unwavering knack for cosmic, outward-bound sounds, no matter what the style: krautrock, drone, space-rock, shoegaze, disco, house, etc. They’ve gilded them all.
The band’s masterly use of FX pedals and deployment of repetition influenced by minimalist masters such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich give Cloudland Canyon‘s music a sense of infinitude. Their radiant music serves as a side-effect-free substitute for hallucinogens. Seriously, more people should know about them.
Cloudland Canyon is their first album since 2016’s electro-pop gem An Arabesque, which is an electro-pop gem of android majesty. While it might be accurate to call the new full-length Cloudland Canyon’s “pop” album, it isn’t at all a lowest-common-denominator move. And the fact that Uhlhorn “collaborated primarily with AI” to produce these nine songs should cause me to walk away in disgust, but the man’s way with melodies and textures is too interesting to let my biases against artificial intelligence dismiss the work. As a bonus, Elyssa Diane, formerly of Seattle synth duo Roladex, adds icily dulcet vocals to some songs.
For whatever reason, Uhlhorn has finessed his most sublime melodies since 2010’s Fin Eaves, while augmenting the songs with a thick glaze of electronics. “Circuit City” is a swirling, stardusted pop with a tight motorik rhythm that makes me want to segue it into Spacemen 3’s “Big City (Everybody I Know Can Be Found Here).” (Uhlhorn’s worked with that band’s Pete Kember.) “SEA TACT/Whispering Waves” charges hard and cool, like Suicide if they dug psychedelic guitar drones. If you like Panda Bear/Sonic Boom‘s Reset, you’ll flip for this track. A curveball on the album, “Recursive Excursions” alluringly mopes in the vein of Darklands-era Jesus & Mary Chain.
“Future Perfect (Bad Decision)” is a gloriously hushed ballad that’s like a 21st-century reboot of the most heart-piercing songs on the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds. The multi-layered depth of Uhlhorn’s production and the sumptuousness of the melody may also make longtime CC fans notice a similarity with “White Woman” from 2008’s Lie in Light. Don’t talk (put your Kleenex™ on my eyes).
