Spark Super Robot Battle Deluxe CATMD128

Spark follows up his critically acclaimed “the robot girl next door” CD with “super robot battle deluxe”. All but decimated are the saccharine 8 bit melodies of the robotic girl. This time around she has been retrofitted for 12-bit mayhem, and now the real battle has begun. Recorded live in Spark's secret lair, “super robot battle deluxe” assaults you with a perfect mix of acidic old school hardcore, breakcore trickery and subtle subliminal melodies that leave you wanting the battle to never end. “Super robot battle deluxe” is an infectious mix of modern experimental electronica. [ learn more about Spark]

fakezine

this is most uncommon release on n5md from all observed today. many styles are included, many variations, strange sounds incorporated when you don’t expect, incompatible things appearing here and there to make defining even more complicated. it starts with 7 minute intensifying madness. rhythm is slowly evolving while main noisy melody is driving, growing and transforming into pure noise making hypnotizing sound amalgamation. after that you can notice rare calm pieces, classic drum n bass rhythm tracks, idm like melodies combined with broken rhythms, pure breakcore rhythms with noise backgrounds and much acid included everywhere in old school hardcore role. subtle subliminal unnoticeable melodies are behind the hard and abrasive rhythm and noise. this various combinations and difference are making this release quite complicated, but from other side even more interesting. exclaim!

Vancouver’s Matt Willox’s focus appears to have shifted from the melodic electronica of his 2002 debut, The Robotic Girl Next Door, to (the insufferably named genre) intelligent dance music (IDM). The tracks range from ambient space soundtracks to drill & bass and although they could conjure battles in space, they do not sound robotic. Perhaps this is because Willox used a performance-based approach with an emphasis on manual control and improvisation, rather than automation, to create this album. The first track, “My Human Objective” is a spacey atmospheric number with an almost funky shuffling rhythm that is slowly infused with unsettling electronic noise. It climaxes right at the end — a perfect contrast with the low hum that begins the forbidding I’m-all-alone-on-this-strange-planet sound of “Spectralk.” After the ambient “Space,” the intricate choppy beats of “Bombing for Peace” blast the stillness, only to be followed by the melancholic and melodic “Memor.” Willox teases with “Hardcore Robo,” as the clangy, reverb-y, submarine-sound textured number also includes bits of danceable beats. Then, somewhat suddenly, he slams into full-on drill & bass with “Zone in Effect.” Overall, it’s an agreeable, sometimes invigorating and sometimes irritating ride, and it’ll be interesting to hear where Willox decides to take his music next. igloomag

"My Human Objective," Spark says in the opening minutes of Super Robot Battle Deluxe, "is to make your ears scream." A rising tone climbs so high that dogs in the neighborhood are whining in fear. I grind my teeth down to nubs, and I really, really, really want to be doing anything else than suffering through this freakin' tone of death. Spark can't do it just once, oh no, he comes back to it time and again during the opening track of his new record, just flogging the listener with this brain-engraving tone. The underlying beat structure and claustrophobic loop of melody (and how it turns itself into a shrieking spinning mass by the end of the track) is, however, decently engaging. Which is the only reason I even bother to get to the second track. "This album is well suited for extreme listening experiences," the press releases warns --at the very bottom of the page. By the time I get that far, my ears are already bleeding. The gentle sine tones and distant brush of percussion of "Spectralk" is a welcome refuge from the noise terror of the opening track.

Spark is out to obliterate electronics on his newest record, adopting a live, performance-style approach to his knob twiddling and squelch blasting. It's old-school improvisation against the digital backdrop, on-the-fly node splicing for optimal disjointedness and the persistent cicada rhythm of granular chaos. Tracks like "Space" with its buzz of attenuated air raid sirens and popping steam beats turn themselves inside out and become the thrashing chaos of breakbeat aggression ("Bombing For Peace") before splintering into Dali-esque timepieces that rapidly tick themselves into oblivion and fuse into a drifting ambience that gives birth to emotionally arresting analog melodies ("Memor").

"Sick to Death" squiggles with robotic voices driven into the DSP stratosphere while a virtual harpsichord charms its way out of a plastic bag. "Transform, Sonic Doom" tries to out-Devine Richard Devine with his endless layering of sound bytes and digital effects (and, somewhat surprisingly, it actually works pretty well as a combat piece). "Secret Science," one of my favorites, welds deep space noises to an angular piano solo like a Keith Emerson composition for the 50th anniversary of Vangelis' Cosmos soundtrack.

It's a constantly shifting landscape out there in Super Robot Battle Deluxe as Spark puts a live wire into his creative muscles and lets his overloaded cortex drive his fingertips. Some of it works, some of it will be of interest only to those with a deep passion for the caustic precision of a thousand knives being sharpened simultaneously, and the rest will be heard with a curious fascination as to how these disparate elements could actually be combined into a listenable whole. Engaging, in the end.

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