Container - LP (2011)

I recently discovered the Spectrum Spools imprint which is a sub-label of Editions Mego curated by John Elliot of the mighty Emeralds. The first releases I came across on the label were by Robert Turman (Flux) and Motion Sickness of Time Travel (Self Titled album) which totally blew me away and decided to investigate more. It was during that investigation that I downloaded the Container album and have had it on heavy rotation ever since!

Clocking in at only 36 minutes, the set contains absolutely killer, squashed technoid mutations - like surgeon on DMT covering cybotron jams with a bubble machine. This release sidesteps the cosmic drift of most other Spoolers' work and is essentially a twisted, time-warping and insolently fucked lo-fi techno record. 'Application' is all submerged drums and disembodied claps as the whole track is subjected to some extra-wild DIY signal processing whilst 'Protrusion' and 'Rattler' summon the gnarly acid stylings of AFX or Legowelt. 'Dissolve' is closest to that teasing Surgeon+DMT+Cybotron formulation, a grot-infused meld of jackers' beats, sci-fi synthetics and scouring industrial noise.

From Soundcloud;

"Container is a recent moniker of Nashville, Tennessee resident Ren Schofield, who has been actively shifting about the U.S. playing shows and releasing cassettes on his mysterious I Just Live Here imprint for a long while now. Known primarily for his God Willing project, a disjointed, confusing maze of crude oscillator, tape, and guitar, Ren has established himself as a staple in the East Coast underground. Here we have a new experiment in electronic beat-oriented music. This is no standard fare, however. It glows with a vision all its own, completely isolated and separate, making it difficult to place in the awkward world of the "genre." The sounds are a thick stew, congealing new ideas and naive experiments into something in the ballpark of the new super-weird Wolfgang Voigt 12"s, abstract and minimal in nature with time-stopping tendencies . Take those 12"s and send them through the garbage can, tape loop, reel-to-reel experiments of Ake Hodell's "220 Volt Buddha" or that weird track with a lawnmower by Charles Amirkhanian on the first Slowscan volume and we might be getting closer. This music, by being so unruly and defiant of any kind of trend, has created a fresh fusion we have not heard until now. "Application" introduces you to Container in the most suitable way. A confusing anti-rhythm accompanied by eerie, unidentifiable tones before a collapse of metallic drum sounds washes you out into the minimal, motorik "Protrusion." The flip takes off with intense feedback squeal and a more light speed rhythm, leading into "Overflow," the album's wildest, most textural piece. "Rattler" leaves the listener absolutely baffled and flipping the record over again to try to figure it all out as this record makes no sense to anybody but its creator."

Essential fare for lovers of analogue experimentation or synth mangling in general.

Be sure to check out the Spectrum Spools label too whilst you're at it.