New Video: Beat Detectives

Man, these Beat Detectives guys are capital-dub Weird. Their musical output stands as pretty strong evidence of this, with groggy-azz tapes for Moon Glyph, 100% Silk and Night-People all capturing my attention last year. Their latest release, the wonderfully titled ASSCOP, captures those “3am basement house party” vibes that followers of the Detectives will already be accustomed to. As if the psychedelic fug of the music wasn't enough, their visual accompaniments also happen to be next-level BAD trip material (as is well-documented on their YouTube channel), and the Nic Wilson-animated vid for "Fresh Out The Pack" could well be the strangest of the lot, featuring a nude CGI Bart Simpson doing all sorts of hoodrat shit; namely, walking through a mountain range, navigating a black void, and setting himself on fire. Yeah. Watch it above, and cop the ass outta ASSCOP from 1080p here.

Review: The Soft Pink Truth

The Soft Pink Truth Why Do the Heathen Rage? (Thrill Jockey, 2014)

Can popular music ever exist without politics? Even in mainstream, charting music, one cannot help but get the sense that, now more than ever, artists are bringing an explicit political agenda to their work. Beyoncé, perhaps the foremost singer in pop, male or female, described herself as a "modern-day feminist" in an interview with Vogue UK, before taking this notion to its logical extreme on her self-titled album late last year: surely only Yoncé can shout "bow down, bitches!" over a drilling trap beat, before dedicating the middle portion of the same track to an excerpt from feminist writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. An overtly political record, then, but also the fastest selling album in the history of the iTunes Store. Away from the Billboard 200, the likes of Sleaford Mods and Young Fathers are spinning intriguing political narratives of their own, deeply rooted in background and personal circumstance.

Perhaps, however, we try to shoehorn politics into a musical context too hastily. For all the thinkpieces and articles on the supposed feminism of Miley Cyrus, the tracks on Bangerz, both lyrically and musically, remain effectively apolitical in nature; this is music for the party, which by design defies any political reality. This escapism is ultimately shallow, but Cyrus most certainly knows that she needn't create discussion through her music, so she doesn't. In the case of Cyrus and Bangerz, it's the aesthetic which takes precedence, and while on some level she may attest that her image subscribes to feminism, she is also aware that sex very much sells. Unlike Beyoncé, her ass is less a liberation front and more a platform from which to sell records.

This, then, poses a different question; can popular music exist without sex? In a Freudian sense, sex has manifested itself across all "popular" (I use this term quite broadly here) genres; not just amongst charting/radio music, but also at the more esoteric end of the popular music spectrum. From a distance, black metal might appear to be totally and utterly sexless, with many of its practitioners employing distinctively misanthropic, sacrilegious imagery in their work. It is upon closer inspection that themes of sexual desire and lust begin to appear, and this also happens to be where Drew Daniel's Soft Pink Truth project enters the fray. The Soft Pink Truth is the Matmos member's playful dance-orientated output, probably best known for 2004's Do You Want New Wave or Do You Want the Soft Pink Truth?, a collection of hardcore punk songs reimagined as synth-heavy house. Having spent the better part of a decade mainly focusing on his operations in Matmos, Daniel has emerged with the first Soft Pink Truth record since Do You Want New Wave...: this time, an album of black metal covers.

That Daniel should even touch genre classics such as Venom's "Black Metal" or Darkthrone's "Beholding the Throne of Might" is problematic in and of itself; black metal fans are famously dogmatic, and reconfiguring these tracks as house/electronica is enough to provoke bile-spewing internet comments as it is - indeed, the video for the "Black Metal" cover has already had a number of commentators express their distaste for Daniel's treatment of the original - but the most provocative issue underpinning Why Do the Heathen Rage? is sexuality. Daniel occupies a unique vantage point, as both a self-professed black metal fanatic and a homosexual man. It is this situation that drives the very essence of Why Do the Heathen Rage?, for this isn't so much a "profanation" of black metal as it is a complete genre deconstruction, not only gleefully attacking the dogged authenticity it strives for, but also the extreme homophobia and prejudice of some of its practitioners.

Daniel's makeovers penetrate themselves deeply into black metal's kvlt principles, reimagining aggressive riffs as acidic synth squeals, blast beats as punchy drum machine patterns, and so on. Interestingly enough, it's not only black metal that is being retooled here; baffling house and pop interjections appear throughout, such as Chuck Roberts' famed "let there be house!" proclamation on "Let There Be Ebola Frost". While this certainly smacks of a kitschy, self-indulgent appropriation of the genre, this tongue-in-cheek approach is not without a degree of respect for the material that is being worked with. The lyrics of the respective tracks Daniel takes to are kept intact, and the vocal delivery of these lines tends to retain the same raspy growl; clearly, these covers function not only to critique the narrow-mindedness of the black metal community at large, but ultimately to celebrate the music itself as Daniel confronts the fascistic ideals of his beloved genre.

As an exposé on the abstruse sexuality of black metal, Why Do the Heathen Rage? succeeds spectacularly, with lines like "riding Hell's stallions, bareback and free" reframed to now perhaps indicate the latent homoeroticism of some of the sacred cows of the staunchly masculine genre. It also succeeds as both an imitation and a respectful tribute to the unfuckable-with musical and thematic values at the beating heart of black metal. Above all, however, it succeeds as a Soft Pink Truth album; even without the serious historical subtext of Why Do The Heathen Rage?, it can be appreciated on its own terms as a hard-hitting, amusing and, occasionally, even danceable set of tracks.

2014: Favourites of Q2

Where does time go? 2014 is already half-way through, and having honoured the best albums of (roughly) January-March, we're back to honour the best albums of (roughly) April-June - this time, however, we decided to actually quantify why we like these albums so damn much rather than just straight up list them. As ever, expect a nice grab-bag of styles and sounds, from alien grime to dusty jazz-hop with a gangster rap edge; terrifying doom metal to shimmering psych-folk, and so on.

Shout-out time; many great releases from Q1 slipped through the cracks initially, along with the sleeper hits we didn't realise we liked so much until after the list was finalised. These include Isaiah Rashad's Cilvia Demo, New Balance's Formes De Viure, Kassem Mosse's Workshop 19, Sun Araw's Belomancie, Ana Caprix's For Seven Nights This Island Is Ours, Ekoplekz's Unfidelity, Migos' No Label 2, Magic Eye's Babylon and Kevin Gates' By Any Means.

More shout-out time; the past three months have been particularly kind to us, so here are a load of releases that barely missed the cut from Q2: BADBADNOTGOOD's III, Foodman's DRUM DESU, Valerio Tricoli's Miseri Lares, Traxman's Da Mind of Traxman Vol. 2, Life Sim's This Life, Gobby's Wakng Thrst For Seeping Banhee, Fear of Men's Loom, Dynooo's These Flaws Are Mine To War With, GFOTY's Secret Mix, Lil B's Hoop Life, Klara Lewis' Ett, Fushitsusha's Nothing Changes..., Mac DeMarco's Salad Days. Every single album mentioned above is worth checking out along with our top 20, and who knows, maybe they'll grow on us in the coming months.

2014: Favourite Tracks/EPs So Far

6 months have passed in what is already shaping up to be an outstanding year in the world of music. As a new age of musicians begin to leave their mark on the face of the industry, whether it be the future garage sounds of Jamie xx or through hypermodern UK grime as demonstrated by Serious Thugs, it is evident that the underground scene is thriving more than ever. As is usually the case, it has been immensely difficult for both myself and Joe Sherwood to keep the list's maximum at 15 tracks, and so considerable mentions must be given to Swans' "Bring The Sun/Toussaint L'Ouverture", Hannah Diamond's "Attachment" and "Slave To The Rhythm" by the late Michael Jackson to name a few. We'll be releasing our list of albums with a short review for each very shortly so keep on checking back for that. Until then, enjoy our favourite tracks and EPs of the year thus far, complete with a Soundcloud playlist for each of us (tracks not on Soundcloud are linked to YouTube/Spotify).

Review: Death Grips

Death Grips niggas on the moon (Harvest/Third Worlds, 2014)

Death Grips have never taken a conventional approach in releasing their albums, with 2012's NO LOVE DEEP WEB being leaked by the group against the will of their ex-record label, Epic, and 2013's Government Plates dropping out of the blue to the delight of hype-beasts and experimental hip-hop junkies everywhere. niggas on the moon was no exception to this rule, with their latest release going viral via their Facebook page, with little more than the information that the Icelandic avant-garde veteran, Björk, features on all 8 tracks, alongside the kind words "have a sad cum bb". The post was then signed off from "us", which incidentally has caused much dispute over the album's controversial title considering the ethnic backgrounds of both the drummer and producer in the band.

Rory Ferreira A.K.A Milo, nerd-rap's "loquacious public speaker", had an awful lot to say about say about the choice of the title niggas on the moon almost immediately after the album's release early in the morning of the 9th of June, stating that "two white dudes [Zach Hill and Andy Morin] just put out a record called niggas on the moon and i hate them for it". A bold comment with logical reasoning, no doubt, but Twitter's general lack of acknowledgement towards to the album title really epitomises the current state of hip-hop lyricism whereby the 'n word' has become almost meaningless. The offence that the word once carried has effectively been forgotten and thus it is used in the bad taste that Ferreira spoke of more often nowadays, so it will be interesting to see the band's reaction to the criticism at a future date.

The album's content, however, is indisputable, and although it is clear that the band has taken yet another extensive change in direction with their latest release being driven by MC Ride's fervent raps as opposed to the synthesisers and percussion loops that very much distinguished Government Plates, the band's most powerful attributes have been grinded together and in doing so, Death Grips have produced their most refined work as of yet, and what can only be described as a contemporary masterpiece. niggas on the moon opens with a thunderous track, "Up My Sleeves", that really sets the scene for the album as it is characterised by the violent darkness of Ride's lyrics; 'I was conceived by my disease' being a particularly stand out line with it feeling like an extension of NO LOVE DEEP WEB's introductory track "Come Up and Get Me" due to the harshness and brutality of Ride's raspy flow.

One thing that can be said for listening to the album for the first time is that it is certainly difficult to follow, with aggressive lyrics being lost in the mix of noisy drum patterns and Björk samples on "Have A Sad Cum" and footwork-like production on "Voila" adding a new dimension to the niggas on the moon experience. It is an album that unforgivingly forces itself upon you and leaks frenzied energy into your eardrums, but as far as experimental music goes, the first half of this album is an absolute game-changer.

New Music: Cool Angels

Following on from the sublime Formes De Viure tape back in February (scope it out here), Exo Tapes are comin' through once again with a new set from Cool Angels, the brainchild of Nicholas Ray aka Speculator. Much like previous releases under the guise, Hole is a melancholic yet comforting reverie, a meditation on reggae and pop communicated through hiss-drenched, spacious soundscapes. It's just the kind of summer comedown music you need as we approach the holidays, so listen to the digital stream below and maybe grab a tape from Exo here; there are only 35 of these in existence, so it's not to be missed.

New Music: Foodman

It's been over a month since the last //APEX post, and in our dormancy some fairly astounding records have been released. One such album is DRUM DESU, a new tape from the slippery Japanese footworker 食品まつり aka Foodman, which was released unto the web by Noumenal Loom on May 9. If you've had the pleasure of following the music of Foodman, you'll know that the footwork connection is an extremely distant one at this stage; DRUM DESU continues his expansion into what is near-enough uncharted territory, characterised by his use of garbled samples, digital squelches and barely-there drum patterns. Bewildering stuff indeed, but it should leave you thoroughly satisfied if you're in the market for an alternative experience. Stream the whole damn thang below, and maybe grab it on cassette from the label here.