Friday, October 23, 2015

Cassette Review: BEELZEBUKKAKE "Automated Atrocities"



I find it kind of odd that within a short time of each other I have two different artists who both have the word "bukkake" in their name.   I will always kind of read this as "Beelzebub" anyway, but could the two artists collaborate and become BEELZEBUKKAKE MOMS?  It might be worth at least one listen to see what they could both put together.   Still, I'm sure I could search for bands based solely on that one word being in their name but I'd really rather not so I'll just kind of try to move on and know that I've reviewed not only one but now two cassettes which share such a word.

"Automated Atrocities" (Which always looks like "Astro Cities" to me) begins with an audio sample and big electronic drum beats.   It becomes this sort of death march on a loop.    We're all the lambs, going to slaughter.    The delivery is mechanical and it has this working sort of vibe to it, the way you might imagine a cartoon of people working in a factory on an assembly line, repeating the same tasks simultaneously.   In an animated sense it's between "Dilbert" and "A Bug's Life" for me, but there is also this sense of the opening sequence to the movie "Joe Versus the Volcano" as well.     Though there are some slight whirr variations in the background the same beats continue to loop.   There are somewhat of vocals, then a crash and then a scream.   A laughing sound becomes a lot of static as beats fade and then rebuild.    Side A ends with electronic beats making their comeback.

On the flip side we have electronic beats, distortion and sort of screams.    It feels somewhat similar to Side A but I know it isn't the same.   I can hear something different in it, as much as it sounds like it might be a remix or something similar.   A sense of robotics comes out and not just because i was watching the new season of "Battlebots" when not listening to this.    It ends with some screams and as much as I like to focus on that one sort of naughty word in the artist name you have to remember that Beezlebub is a code name for the devil and there is something excitedly evil about this on some level, at least on the second side it seems to find a bit more darkness.

Usually when I hear anything with beats like this I want to put it somewhere in either hip hop or electronic music.   The fact that this sounds the way that it does though is a reminder that it doesn't really fit into either of them as it has a distinct sound which isn't really quite either.   This could become its own genre, sure, but I have no idea what you would call it and if a name already does exist for it then I'm simply not aware of it.    So I would have to just say that if you are a fan of either electronic music or instrumental hip-hop then this should be an apt fit for you but it's not going to sound like anything you've heard before.  










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