DOS Tracks
:)

THE REVIEW

DOS Tracks: That mad genius with a thousand faces (and names) who answers to the name of Uwe Schmidt. If you know him for his recent more successful project (Señor Coconut), don't expect anything similar; put aside the electro-latin cover-parodies and enjoy the real Uwe, the one with a soul as krafteutonic as ever, with dissonances and raped bites. Cyber-indecipherable and experimental. In this 1999 release, the small German composer creates a masterpiece of digital noise that could not have a more fitting alias: DOS Tracks!

Computer Music in the true sense of the word: processed errors, glitch and clicks aplenty, noises of dubious origin and not (starting from the historic internet connection noise that opens the phenomenal "Waiting For The Host") are the elements that compose this unusual work. All in full Atom™ style (the main project and also the noisiest of Mr. Schmidt). A freaking mess, a sea of crappy sounds stuck on impossible rhythms. And if this might sound like the usual 8bit conundrum, nintendocore, and nerdy little things for "alternative" nerds, then you're wrong: Uwe looks beyond, and he does so with a truly remarkable work.

It would be quite complicated to produce something sensible, listenable, and even danceable, starting from just noises, stuff that isn't jappo mess and the like, but :) Uwe succeeds, and he does so with an approach reminiscent of minimal techno with the difference that if in the latter the minimalism is limited around rhythmic and background sounds (letting the bass and kick properly pump), here even these elements must necessarily be "minimal", micro-lo-fi to the core, but with their own "soul", a song form that leaves one amazed considering the few elements available: "Disk 0" and "Asciied" well represent this concept.

As the pseudonym suggests, each track is mainly formed by 2 tracks, the first rhythmic with dirty kicks and exaggerated bass (devastating those in "1E Wav"), the other exclusively noisy, and in this field, it is known Uwe's flair knows no bounds. The two tracks start from a sound bank reduced to the bone, but which in every sample can evolve over time to shape that extremely sick and artificial sound that is the main element characterizing this work. Occasionally in the noise orgy, some breakcore excursions pop up ("www.pringles.com"), mad looping ("Extension + Compression = Expression"), white noise, and purposely out-of-sync beats ("Pult"). Schmidt's sick creativity reaches very high levels throughout the album, atypical tracks like "Returning To Local Operation" adequately attest to this.

An unmissable gem that went almost unnoticed in this man's vast production. It's time to fish it out!