What's a Listening Log? Well, the idea is quite simple. It's a weekly segment that consolidates all the mini-reviews Dozens Of Donuts has given on RateYourMusic over the past week, split between the Past and Present. A straightforward grading scale has been put in place, ranging from A+ to F-, with C acting as the baseline average. There is no set amount of reviews per week, just however many I get around to reviewing. And don't expect week-of reviews. I wait one month - with at least three listens under my belt - before I rate and review an album. Enjoy!
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Midtown 120 Blues is a fascinating record, though only partially due to the Deep House it probes rapturously. For one, the exclusivity it insists upon - found only on vinyl or an archaic peer-to-peer file sharing network - reflects the New York City club circuit DJ Sprinkles geminated from, with its culture bred on connections, status, and permanence. Outsiders need not apply. No, really, this record isn't for you or I. Snobbishness, a belief dubiously warranted with valid discourse, commences on 'Midtown 120 Intro,' as Terre Thaemlitz rifles through House music's history with pompous disdain of those who butchered a once-queer society with mass production. It's an arresting preface, one that's both easy to agree with and to deride. Like an archival document unearthed, exposing the niche, nuance, and novelty of a bygone era, Midtown 120 Blues exists to rectify auld lang syne faded by tacky graffiti and bastardized gentrification. Conceptually, it's exquisite, if not a tad ostentatiously supercilious. Musically, DJ Sprinkles' dissection of Deep House lacks substance and gravitation.
Midtown 120 Blues is incredibly difficult to judge off this alone, especially when there's a clear divide between ambition and execution. You'd be hard-pressed to find a record more enamored with Deep House, more transfixed on accuracy, more vexed by those not doing the same. Though the majority lie in instrumentals steadfast at 120 BPM, Thaemlitz' opinionated personality can be felt across each of the 80 minutes. To fall into the grooves, to be hypnotized by 'House Music Is Controllable Desire You Can Own's' catatonic polyrhythms or 'Grand Central, Pt. II's' desolate, post-rave lumber home reflects a culture bound by out-of-body experiences. Inserting a reality punctured by grifting transgressors and clueless blockheads is Thaemlitz' way of communicating displeasure within the movements, rather than separated. Though tracks like 'Midtown 120 Blues' and 'Reverse Rotation' promenade, on the surface, like archetypical Deep House devoid of contemplation, incisive remarks on its very existence never stray far from the source. 'Ball'r' is perhaps the most trenchant, as Thaemlitz declares that "you will not be allowed to vogue to the decontextualized, reified, corporatized, liberalized, neutralized, asexualized, re-genderized pop reflection of this dance floor's reality," in reference to Madonna's siphoning of ingratiated House code, an idea that rings depressingly true.
If impassioned cries to the void is what you seek, then DJ Sprinkles will be for you. If genuine, straight and narrow Deep House that enshrines past memories rather than creating new ones sounds intriguing, give Midtown 120 Blues a go. However, in terms of actual enjoyment, Thaemlitz' ardent commitment to conveyance incontrovertibly reduces artistry elsewhere. It's regressive, by design. And I do not discredit it for that, as, unlike the majority of other artists reliving past eras, DJ Sprinkles has done so to teach and raise awareness. On the whole though, Midtown 120 Blues is quite bland. It's conventional, predictable, repetitive, and rarely impressive. Sonically speaking, of course. For one, the regurgitated use of sampling - seen most noticeably on 'Ball'r' and 'Sisters, I Don't Know What This World Is Coming To' - iterates a mood without supplementing it, especially given the length DJ Sprinkles works in. Skip around the latter's ten minutes, for instance, and you'll see no evolution to warrant such protraction. 'Grand Central, Pt. I' effectively follows the same formula, but alleviates such tedium by bouncing between Deep House and Ambient House, as the latter takes form engrossingly come 'Grand Central, Pt. II.' Others, like 'Brenda's $20 Dilemma,' substantiates Thaemlitz' aura with a sobering atmosphere, letting engaging Electronica fall by the wayside. Mind you, most of these critiques are preference-based, DJ Sprinkles' talents are never drawn into question, merely the matter in which they're channeled.
After 73 elongated minutes, Midtown 120 Blues ends with its best effort; 'The Occasional Feel-Good.' An apt name for an environment so dejected and cast aside, to end with optimism and hope instead of pettiness and malaise was a move both respectable and inspirited. DJ Sprinkles accomplished what she set out to achieve, resting on laurels knowing those who've made it to 'The Occasional Feel-Good' deserve an invitation to an exclusive club. Just so long as you've learned its history.
C-
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Dream doesn't take itself seriously, and that's okay. Shawn Reed's lyrics find a happy medium between childish and abstract, but really, who's listening to Wet Hair for words? Dream exist in distortion, an alternate reality of sorts where psychedelics have ravaged the last vestige of normality. Think Tonstartssbandht - for those who're aware of one of Lo-Fi Indie's best acts - and descend further into madness. Drone sends hypnotics to the void as dour Krautrock paces itself indolently around space-age synthesizers and cheap, tin-pot percussion. Tracks like 'Black Sand' and 'Ordinary Lives' feel like ricocheting reverberations from extraterrestrial beings, sending human transmissions back to us; frayed, contorted, and macabre. The latter bears slight resemblance to Alien Porno Midgets; Leyland Kirby's off-shoot pseudonym before The Caretaker took hold.
However, it's Dream's bookended ideas that achieve the best results. In both cases, Wet Hair's exhausted Krautrock guides recalcitrant anomalies into formation. 'Cult Electric Annihilation' balances the tedium of Drone with enough shifting elements to excite absorbed listeners, eventually incorporating Reed's manic screeches. As for 'Radio Machines / Gold Chains' the pacing is gorgeous, initiating with a space-yard dirge that unfurls with distant church bells and cushioned synthesizers to provide a sense of assurance for Dream to end on. These two are diehard examples of purist Neo-Psychedelia, it's just a shame the desultory skittishness of Dream's two middle tracks sour the colossal towers containing them.
C
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Birthday Of Bless You is cursed. Inca Ore's wide-eyed, seemingly-innocuous gaze on the cover is just the first hint, drawing comparisons to Patty Waters' Sings for accomplishing the same sense of unsuspecting dread. Let it be known: This is a terrifying album. The most unsettling, disturbed, stomach-churning I've heard. Here, Drone isn't used literally so much as figuratively, contorting the unremitting aspects of prolonged exposure by thwarting expectation around every corner. This isn't a singular plot of horror so much as it is a nightmarish hellscape educing demons both physical and internal. The coherency lies in the total lack of security, causing tracks like 'Alone In The Supreme' and 'Sunset Pigments' - rife with angelic pulchritude - to succumb to infesting contagion. Especially when tracks like 'Infant Ra' and 'Silver Wings' surround them, like an encroaching darkness that consumes any good left in the world.
I don't know who Inca Ore is, and for Birthday Of Bless You's sake, it should stay that way. The sinister mystique is both foreign and intense, with almost certain personal afflictions giving way to haunting renditions like 'Sun' and 'Creation.' The latter is deeply disconcerting, with undulating strings looping around sheer discord and abstract imagery from Ore that's pronounced and deranged. It's like a Psychological Thriller when the frantic build-up drops out to looming, ominous fear. Frozen in place, as the mind moves a mile a minute. Elsewhere, on 'Wedding Day' and 'Lady Days,' Ore also features wirey synthesizer work that plays out like The Caretaker's most abstruse works, but draws closer comparisons to a 2018 album; Lilien Rosarian's A Day In Bel Bruit. Perhaps there's influence there, who knows. However, the acumen of Birthday Of Bless You comes not with any one of these sounds, but the discrepancy in which they're presented. Drone is typically one-note, one-dimensional, and exhaustive on a singular subject. With eleven striking ideas, Inca Ore dispels that notion, paralyzing listeners from a litany of angles. Be it the endless hallway ahead, pitch black doorways aside, or shrouded unknown behind.
B+
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