PLAYING DETROIT: TRIP METAL FEST 2017

 

Memorial Day weekend means one thing and one thing only for most of Detroit: techno. For the past 17 years (on and off due to regulatory restrictions, budgeting issues and exponential crowd growth) Detroit celebrates its role as the birthplace of true, nitty-gritty electronic music. From the likes of Carl Craig, Kevin Saunderson and Moodymann, a world was forged from heart-racing bass beats and dizzying spins of discordant manipulation.

Well, this post isn’t about Movement. This is about TRIP METAL FEST. Companion, rival, and a deeper, more brooding assemblage of sound, TRIP METAL FEST (a pay-what-you-want weekend of musical shock therapy) kicks off this weekend at Detroit’s El Club. We’ve handpicked a few unsettling tracks to scare off the unwanted BBQ leeches this Memorial Day.

Aaron Dilloway: The Beauty Bath (Side A)

A relentless buzzing occupies the space of this 23-minute long track like a fly trapped between a window and a screen. To call Aaron Dilloway’s “The Beauty Bath” ambient would be missing the point all together. His static distress call is manic and sedated while maintaining a level of complete neutrality.

WOLF EYES: Interference Part 3

The lead curators of the event, Wolf Eyes have given “dark” a new scale on which to be measured. Known for their maddening orchestral cluster-fuck, Wolf Eyes excels at all things unnerving. The trio’s latest record Interference (released earlier this month) exploits the Lars Von Trier-esque rabbit hole of sound that tangos with beauty and mortality in equal measure.

Elysia Crampton: Panic Glue (Demo)
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Panic is right. California based Elysia Crampton delivers a soundtrack suitable for that episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark? with the cigarette-smoking funhouse clown. Although her other work is more verbally haunting, with guns cocking and twinkling harpsichord layers, the underlying theme of disturbia is ever present no matter what track you click.

BONUS: Performance Artist Bailey Scieszka, a.k.a Old Put, is down with the clown and promises to suck you into her twisted world of chaos and love of WWE Smackdown.

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PLAYING DETROIT: Wolf Eyes “I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces”

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Wolf Eyes reemerges with their Third Man Records debut (the label created by Detroit’s own prodigal son, Jack White) with I Am A Problem: Mind In Pieces. After an aggressive and perplexing takeover of Third Man’s Instagram account last week (they lost over a thousand followers as a result, which warranted a regretful apology from the label), Wolf Eyes is doing what they do best: making noise that is as jarringly tragic as it is sonically eruptive. Considered the “kings of U.S noise” and pioneers of trip-metal, Nate Young, John Olson, and Jim Baljo have not departed from their signature nuance of dismal, distempered dystopia on I Am A Problem as explored previously on their exhaustive, extensive catalogue. But don’t assume that Wolf Eyes are wading in stagnant waters. In fact, this time around they’ve managed to turn their chaos into discernible, tortured transcendence. Although celestially despondent, I Am A Problem never runs away from itself; each track cascades into a cosmic rawness that warps, wraps, and entangles you. From start to finish (and back again) it’s difficult to put a finger on what makes this album seem like it’s on the precipice of undiscovered territory, yet remaining familiar simultaneously. Perhaps it’s the vocally palpable despair paired with the bombastic layering of intergalactic pulsations reminiscent of both heartbeat and heartbreak. Wolf Eyes finds a way to make abstraction relatable and intoxication desirable.

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