ERIC COPELAND is back. Why’s it matter? Well, if you read this website at all you ought to know, but in case you do not let me spell it out: TWISTED. We are in the midst of an overarching shift in electronic music, or at least underground electronic music (though much music outside of this “ghetto” is certainly feeling the vibrations). Electronic music that you can dance to is reaching a wider level of weird than it has perhaps ever managed before. Certainly the OGermans made what amounts to vast stores of strange electronic dance music, and in the ensuing 40 years there have constantly been outliers operating in the warehouses, backrooms, and subterranean spaces, but today you do not have to dig too deeply to find the many noise heads working heavily with beats, or the more experimental minded dance music purveyors that occupy the unseemly corner of their craft. This isn’t about technoise or whatever. What I see is the blossoming of a new shared perspective. A generational shift maybe, and while there are arguments against its staying power (that some of my friends have been nice enough to dole out late night over beers), I personally feel like what we have here is a new means of DIY, or underground music and art expression for the long haul. And I’m all for it, in fact I’ve wanted this for a very long time! I feel like I always used to think (but no longer do so): Where are the other VIKIS? The other EXTREME ANIMALS? M AX NOI MACHS? MATT BRINKMANS? BLACK DICES? Maybe I just wasn’t looking hard enough. Let’s blame the internet and move on.
That last group I mentioned, BLACK DICE. Obviously beloved in the experimental and noise music world, they were some of the early adoptees of the beat music, taking in the beat, raising it as their own, and allowing that beat to lead a happy successful life (splattered by noise). ERIC COPELAND is of course one of BLACK DICE’s founders, continuing to perform and record with that group (they were amazing @ Hassle Fest 5), and for a very long time now releasing solo recordings of his own. His solo recordings have been all over the map (search this site and find many posts about Eric’s music, including this one), but he has often been found pairing wonky and noisy sounds with beats, making for some truly twisted rhythmic noise music. In September Eric is back @ it full throttle as the stellar, and often far left of center, experimental electronic dance music label L.I.E.S., releases his mini-LP, LOGO MY EGO. Great to see this pairing. “Uncle Sam’s Blues” is a pile of disco samples turned into an unsavory pulp that Copeland then applies to his woozy continuum of beats, and other electronic propulsion. It’s a head spinner, an ugly glob of limb shaking joy, just like you want it to be. Need to get a hold of more of these tracks, as I’m not sure that I can wait until September to find out what other avenues of bent electronics Copeland has recently travelled. Having a weird dance party? Make sure not to forget this track.
