Electric Independence

Crack We Are Rock

Triosk meets Jan Jelinek

Michael Mayer

My part-time-MC/stylist roommate, Miss Matches, has OCD. We like to bring it up at parties and people usually laugh and talk shit, but if these same people were getting five calls a day asking if they left the oven/curling iron/candles on, they wouldn't be laughing so hard. This person is cripplingly obsessive. Her new thing is counting to thirteen. Everything is thirteen. When she walks down the street, she counts thirteen steps and starts again. Even if she's late for work she'll dip her teabag thirteen times and have thirteen sips and shove off. If she gets there ten minutes late, she'll wait another three to go in. It's pretty fucking ridiculous, but she can't help it. At least she hasn't gotten to the point where she washes her hands 50 times a day so they're all raw and gross. Since this month's issue is all about obsession, I decided to play some new CDs for my roommate and tape our conversation.

Total Shutdown The Album (Tigerbeat6)

MM:

Hey, I like this! It's totally fucked up! It sounds like that Japanese band Melt Banana. Real extreme.

R+V:

Have you heard The Locust? It sounds like them, except more with an electronic circuit bent edge.

MM:

The singer sounds like the Tasmanian Devil. I had a thing for cartoons when I was a kid. I was also into horses.

R+V:

Big deal. What little girl isn't?

MM:

But I was really into them. I had posters, address books, diaries. I would dream about them all the time. They say if you dream about unicorns it means you're gay.

R+V:

I hear some of the guys in The Locust are gay.

Crack We Are Rock Cosmic Mind Flight (Tigerbeat6)

MM:

It reminds me of that Wickerman movie soundtrack but all slowed down and electro. That cold electro stuff is pretty much dead. There's a place for it, but it got trendy way too fast. I think they can't keep doing it the same way. This music is noisy and messy with this medieval witchcraft choir chant thing. I'm really into medieval settings like enchanted forests. I'm really into deer right now, actually. I wanna paint a giant forest mural on my wall with bucks and fawns 'n' shit. Hey! I just noticed the deer on the album cover! Isn't that freaky? I love deer!

R+V:

Actually, it's an antelope.

MM:

Whatever.

Kid 606 Kill Sound Before Sound Kills You (Ipecac)

MM:

I like Kid 606's spiritedness, but when I saw him, his machines all broke so he was just standing there. Without his machines he's nothing. I don't really like this.

R+V:

Why not?

MM:

It's too hyper-rave.

R+V:

But that's what I like about it! It's full-on memory-lane extreme-dance-party madness! And it's not all rave-y, either––he's got some slower stuff here that's not as insane.

MM:

The slow stuff is okay, but the jungle stuff reminds me too much of a dark point in my life.

Ove-Naxx Bullets From Habikino City H*C* (Soot)

MM:

This kinda sounds like the Kid 606 thing.

R+V:

Well they are sort of affiliated. It's on this guy DJ Rupture's label Soot Records, and Rupture is part of Kid 606's Tigerbeat camp. His stuff has this hyper-jungle mish-mash element to it but with a world-beat flavor. You can hear the Japanese koto samples and jap-rap sneak through the breakcore in there, sort of Venetian Snares meets DJ Honda. I really like it.

MM:

It's really dark. This guy sounds like he has problems.

R+V:

Well, it's dedicated to "anybody with pain."

Michael Mayer Fabric 13 (Fabric)

MM:

Okay, the fact that it has nice packaging and thirteen tracks makes me automatically like this CD.

R+V:

Remember when we went to see Michael Mayer play a few months back?

MM:

Oh yeah, I didn't realize that was this guy. I never remember DJs' names.

R+V:

He was dropping all this old school acid stuff and then into that crazy techno remix of White Stripes and all that Raumschmiere shuffle stuff.

MM:

He played that Depeche Mode song "Personal Jesus" and ended the night with Rolling Stones' "Miss You." That was cool. It made me feel like I wasn't listening to techno. Techno usually scares me, but he played all my favorites, and then all of a sudden I was dancing to techno. I also liked the fact that they weren't all just standing around posing, and that they had ass.

R+V:

You were so wasted that night. You tried to pull his pants down on stage, if I recall. What do you think of the CD?

MM:

It's okay.

Triosk meets Jan Jelinek 1+3+1 (~Scape)

MM:

I like this––it's really very pretty. It reminds me of stuff they would play at an aquarium.

R+V:

What do you mean?

MM:

It sounds underwater and it's very bubbly and fun. I imagine families listening to this right before the killer-whale show. It has a jazzy thing going so it also reminds me of beatniks.

R+V:

Were you ever a beatnik?

MM:

Well, I used to have long braids and flowers in my hair, but I got over it really fast––it was really just an aesthetic thing. I'm skeptical of anyone really into jazz, but it's nice if you want to read a newspaper.

Dani Siciliano Likes… (K7)

MM

: This is bubbly. It sounds like it wants to be Portishead, but it's not. It'd be better if I was really drunk and lonely, then I could relate to it. Or maybe if I was on opium. I really wanted to try opium this weekend but I'm doing a shoot.

R+V:

It's the girl who sings with Herbert. I think the Nirvana cover is just wrong.

MM:

Her voice is nice, but it just doesn't do it for me.

RAF + VINCE