Brooklyn-based experimental electronic trio blows fuse
On their sunnily deranged new album, Repo, Black Dice somehow manage to do away with context entirely, constructing music comprised solely of sound effects designed and recorded themselves. The bass boings, the electronic textures unwind like springs, drums go haywire, filters sweep and pitches bend, volume levels abruptly peak. The result is a manic cartoon-scape of technology gone wild, burping and burbling along cadences so asymmetrically syncopated and spastic that they’re not really measuring time, at least not as we know it. Insane radio voices wash across tunes like “Lazy TV,” and the best tracks—like “Glazin,” with its loopy whorls floating through the song’s chord progression—nestle secret melodies into the chaos. This is what it would sound like if our machines (our samplers, pedals, and assorted gizmos) learned to play themselves, giddy with new sentience and possessing only a rudimentary knowledge of what human music actually sounds like.