ERIC COPELAND is one twisted, groove loving weirdo. Having already given one of his album’s my favorite album title of all time (ALIEN IN A GARBAGE DUMP), and having been a major part of album after album of music landscape altering noise and electronic music hi-jinx with BLACK DICE, what more can be asked of the man?
His solo records have taken us on crazy rides through noise speckled electronic pop crud, pop flecked black holes of noise, and even doo-wop flavored art damaged songs. He cuts his music making material up, stretches it out, submerges it in mysterious fluids and then lets that shit dry out in the sun. I can very honestly say that the music that he makes as a solo performer and with BLACK DICE has greatly changed my purview of music in general, opening up doors into deep deep musical realms that I was either oblivious to or unable to find my way properly to before inserting their musical data into my noggin. I’m always psyched to hear what ERIC COPELAND will do next, because I’ve come to trust that he’s going to make art. He’s going to be engaged in the process of making interesting music, whatever the seed approach may be.
And here in mid-2013 that brings us to JOKE IN THE HOLE, Eric’s new record recently released by DFA RECORDS. A song like “Grapes” is just about as eccentric as serious groove music can get. Psychedelic collage funk sounds horrible but it works. When this jam hits that fried bass breakdown at around 3:10, I’m like, “What?!” And that is truly the overall feeling of this entire affair. This is strange, magical music, experimental and hypnotic, and legitimately worthy of some alien dance floor. For these reasons I think this record will find itself a sizeable audience in these times of the American noise underground turning itself inside out as a new and exciting kind of American electronic dance music underground. I mean, this is the kind of music I would be hoping to hear if I stumbled upon some underground dance party. One of my favs of the year for real.