When I threw on the album Aleamapper (Schematic Records), by Atlanta experimental electronic producer/computer science connoisseur Richard Devine, the first response I got from a friend was “Ugh… you like this?” I could see where the comment came from–at that precise moment, the music sounded like someone was yanking the wiring out of a dying android’s throat. As I venture further into the world of electronic music, though, my appetite for the avant-garde has grown–those trance remixes of Celine Dion just ain’t cutting it anymore.
Aleamapper explores the fringes of the electronic palette, and plays like a movie score, taking strange turns along the way. Sheets of non-repeating glitches and squelches overlap and collide, and metallic crashes and sub-bass rumbles sound as if John Cage were being dragged through the cellars and sewers of a technological wasteland. At times I thought I was listening to someone playing the video game Quake… for a really long time. This album would be the Amnesiac Radiohead could have made if they really didn’t give a damn about alienating their post-rock guitar-oriented fans. Although I appreciate the persistence of the experimental spirit in Devine’s work–he has remixed the likes of Aphex Twin, Matthew Herbert, and Phoenecia–at times I found myself thinking this is what happens when a D&D dungeon master gets hold of a sampler. Maybe he has a disco ball hanging in his studio fashioned after a 16-sided die.
Out of the 16 tracks on this record, only two are dance-floor friendly–but those two are quite solid. Anyone serious about pushing the boundaries of contemporary electronic music shouldn’t be scared to confront the face of what is and isn’t considered acceptable and familiar–and “uniquely unfamiliar” fits Devine to a T.
Richard Devine w/Jerry Abstract and Bobby Karate, Thurs Aug 8 at the Baltic Room, 1207 Pine St, 625-4444, 9 pm, 21+, $7.