Calamar Audio - Tentacle Tubuc (Antiscarp rec. 2007) CD OUT!

On 2007-09-26 04:03, Mesq wrote:
Track 6 is my favourite. Fucking huge and works so well on the dancefloor.

Delightfully wobbly stuff here from Antiscarp, the sort of music that gives you the vague impression that you’re drunk and on ketamine while trying to walk the wrong way down an up escalator in some parallel universe.

While some of the Suomi stuff is completely freeform, there’s a fair bit of trad-psy grounding going on here. Beats don’t warp about quite so much, and you get this effect of being tethered to the ground while your head goes off somewhere odd.

XKymysys2 has elements of old Goa in the midsection that are nice, while Full Slicing has an oddly cinematic Manga vibe. Toutain-Khaamon is more frenetic, sounding like something on Doof records with more lysergic flaunting going on, while Taas Hinkataan (feat Francoise Faggott) pushes the weirdness barometer in the direction of the number eleven.

Hot Disks is more funky and borderline-progressive, but it lacks energy and sounds like Calamar is flexing his muscles more than really pushing weights. New Start, on the other hand, is jam-packed with ideas and growls: it builds into a deliciously postmodern cacophony of psytrance, rave, electro and rock. It needs Infected Mushroom about as much as a fish needs a bicycle.

Probably the best cut here is Calamar Audio’s relentless, screaming remix of Salakavala’s SuperSoaker. Deep, gnarly, twisty and defiantly lo-fi, it’s a genuine top-drawer example of this type of music at its best.

All in all Tentacle Tubuc is solid stuff… if you like that sort of thing. Freestyle psy is at its strongest, I would argue, when it reaches into the realms of “normal” psychedelic trance and adds its pinch of naughtiness. All too often, Calamar Audio stays within his own circle and thrives on cacophonous rage. No bad thing in itself, but it’s unlikely to win over any new fans.