Black Dice
Load Blown

If you think that the year 2000 is entrenched in total cultural passivity, you are mistaken. "Beaches & Canyons" is the vintage of modernism. Almost the entire contemporary noise movement has something to say.

Black Dice masterfully blend free collage, glitch, kraut, and noise. They may seem as cacophonic as Lightning Bolt, but in reality, there is a mannerism and order known only to them. "Creature," "Snarly Yo," and the entire "Beaches & Canyons" are the greatest examples... throwing Eno into the magma of Throbbing Gristle... something similar surely emerges.

It is the most challenging work of the latest phase, where you must concentrate solely on the aesthetics of sound. They leave little room for reflective pauses.

They are android dances for machines.

Mixing Hawaii in glitch is not easy, as in "Scavenger," or the raga tones of "Drool" obsessively looped.

Throughout the work, oppression grows alongside curiosity. The multi-ethnic "Toka Toka" is the music of fauna, forest, and savanna. "Gore" crushes the Swans of "Cop" in an electronic spiral (and it takes some doing). Sonic sadomasochism in "Kokomo," where we find the continuation of the concept in "Broken Ear Record." "Roll Up" is the most bouncing watercolor, but only in terms of rhythm, because stasis is the dominant element within their production.

The cyber nightmare of "Bananas" is softened by the minimal finale, while the neurosis of "Manoman" concludes the album. Inevitably, one loves the feeling of being trapped in the repeat of the most abstract samples.

One becomes a slave to this imaginary sonic circus.