YAY....It's a locked groove record!! Buy it! More to the point, buy its followups and support this evolving artist! Locked groove records are rare, take effort and skill to produce, and most of all, are fun!
Here's a description of what I received: A white label 1-sided record that looks to have about 50 locked grooves on it. The run out area (though there is no "running out" on it, hee hee) reads "Minimalizm v 2".
These sites are connected to this record:
http://www.myspace.com/noisevinyl
http://www.myspace.com/minimalizm
It would appear from visiting these pages that there is now a Minimalizm V.3 and a V.4, but I don't know whether those are variations of this or entirely unique content. Listening to the sample on the myspace page, I think they do indeed contain different content--at the least, in my hunting and pecking, I have not found any of the "V4" samples on my "V2" disc. I don't know whether "Minimalizm" is a group, a person, a collective, a project, or an album title. More mystery!
The content? The genre? It's not something I am at all expert in, but on the myspace page he/she/they describe themselves as "Experimental / Ambient / Electronica." My read on this V2 disc is that it is each of these three things, but not always all of them at the same time.
Most of these tracks are pulsing 4/4 beats. They are all pitched to fit exactly within the alloted 1.8 seconds of a single revolution of a 33 1/3 record, and that is the speed I find most pleasant to play this at. It seems that this disc would have a special utility for club DJs, who could alter the speed of this to mix into the beats-per-minute of whatever they are playing. There are four beats for every revolution of the disc, which, I believe, translates to 133 1/3 beats per minute at 33 1/3 and 180 bpm at 45.
If one had two or three of these discs, I could imagine you could really mix it up by playing them at the same time, and really trip people out. It has obvious utilities that I am unable to explore on my home sound system.
I must admit that at first I was a little disappointed, because I happened to drop the needle into a few beats that sounded like the four-equal-beats pulsing stuff I hear at rave-oriented clubs and lounges. While it is clearly popular, that just happens not to be my cuppa, and I'm not knowledgeable enough about that kind of music to compare its quality here to that of other artists in the genre. So I feel like a dummy trying to review it.
BUT, nonetheless....further perusal of the disc revealed that it got far more interesting after the first few grooves, even more-so at points in its second half, and that even the earlier grooves contain subtleties of detail after you leave them spinning for a while. I actually started to hallucinate and hear elements fade up and down over time, and that is just not possible.....unless there was gradual groove melting going on as the disc spun. (rather unlikely
)To be more specific, some of the more interesting loops avoid rhythm altogether, including atmospheric drones, or contain more eccentric, even humorous, odd beats. There's an old-school retro-disco track or two in there, somewhere, and at least one tribute to early 80's synth pop with "Thriller" overtones. There's some jazzy acoustic stuff, and some funny robotic stuff. One loop samples a soul shouter demanding "Get On Your Feet and Dance!" for all eternity.
My favorite grooves on the disc are the ones that deviate the most from the hands-in-the-air pulsing electronic drum stuff. Just my personal taste. I happen to like irrational limping rhythms and strange noises. If you listen to the "v4" demo on myspace, the first minute or so contains the sort of things that float my boat far more.....so I look forward to hearing the "v4" disc in its entirety. I would personally love to see TRON/Noisevinyl/Minimalizm produce more stuff in this direction, because it is my sound drug of choice.
You can buy it here:
http://www.myspace.com/noisevinyl
It's in euros, so I don't know how that translates in US dollars.
http://www.myspace.com/minimalizm
Tron, please feel free to chime in with more info on what we have here, who you are, and what you are producing now!
