3 out of 5

Label: Sounds Not Music

Producer: Tyson Platt?

I own a handful of independent electro / beat stuff – and by independent I mean not so much just on a non-major label, but the non-major players in the game.  If you’re on Rephlex or Mille Plateux or whatever indie label that serves up flavors of electronic music, chances are you’ve been around the scene.  It’s the stuff that you stumble across that’s completely outta nowhere that might be of interest, but generally carries a certain humble or amateur flavor to it.  Sometimes it’s a production issue, like the artist isn’t quite sure yet how to flesh out their bleeps and bloops effectively, so the compositions are good, but lacking in, eh, ‘sonic range’ (???).  And then sometimes it’s the more assumed difference between a pro and a newbie – that the stuff just scratches the surface.  The artist brings the energy of the inexperienced to the table, and so sputters up some cool concepts, but after the ceremonial waving of hands and puff of smoke, there’s not enough meat to carry a full album (or sometimes EP of material).

So I received The Contortionists CDr – which is a compilation of pieces from other albums, apparently – as a freebie when I ordered some stuff from Acerbic Noise Development.  Chad, who sounds like the sole banana behind the label as of now, told me that the group was/is essentially one dude – Tyson Platt.  I’m glad he gave me some insight, ’cause otherwise there’s really no info on The Contortionists online… which is pretty impressive nowadays.

The music starts with some chanting, then goes into some deep, husky beats with light keys or perhaps guitar (or keyboard guitar) plunking / plucking in the background here and there.  About every other track has an aggressive feel to it, the other half being more ambient, sound washes.  And there are some Jesu-esque drone vocals tossed in here and there, and I actually like the dude’s pitch better than Justin from Jesu.  It just is a more resonant tone that matches the vibe.  The first half of this recording (even though the selections are split evenly across the disc from different albums) is actually quite amazing – Platt doesn’t seem like he’s out to prove anything, even though the songs are propulsive and really head-bobbing, there’s a very organic and yet controlled feeling to them, properly broken up by the ambient pieces.  The second half is when it starts to feel a little indie, though, as some IDM skitters pop up and the seemingly intentional split of styles gets lost for wandering tracks that neither go forward enough or space out enough.

Still, it’s a one man show, and the whole mystery of the thing – I mean, this is really like your friend just handing you a disc and then disappearing into the night – helps make the package work.  But the music stands on its own as something to hold on to and hope that you stumble across more pieces of it in some dollar bin somewhere.