Cerumentric Takes on Reality Wielding a Sword of PunkSynthPop

Cerumentric rocking out live

Reality Rock is a 2009 album from Manila-based singer-producer Erick Antonio Fabian Sr. aka Cerumentric. Forget the scientific sounding name, his music is all about putting punk back into synth music.

In “An Analogue Embrace,” Cerumentric sings: “I’m still young but I feel old/ I feel warm but the world is cold….It stings to not belong/ I won’t be staying long” while behind him, percolating in the background is a straight-up joyful child-like synthpop tune that could’ve easily been a hidden track on Depeche Mode’s Speak And Spell album.

Cerumentric never sings too loud, opting to bury his vocals behind a wall of bouncing square wave synths just like Bernard Sumner used to do in early New Order tracks. Possibly because he knows vocals are not his strongest asset, nevertheless, they serve the purpose of carrying his message out.

Summary:
Wielding electropop that is half early Depeche Mode and half Erasure, Cerumentric uses music as his vehicle of expression and outrage that he was born 20 years too late to be a popstar in the ’80s. Ironically, he uses synthpop to be punk. Because littered all over the album are angsty expressions of rage and isolation, peppered by loud, distorted keyboard melodies and dizzying delay effects. Punk music with a casiotone and a PC. Gotta love it!

Details:

• Reality Rock is available for download from Cerumentric’s bandcamp site at the cost of “name your price.”
• You could stream or download it for free yes, but why not give a little something to help this artist produce more punksynthpop gems for the world to hear?
• Cerumentric’s Facebook page.
• Cerumentric’s SoundCloud page.

The Wave Pictures’ lament on the fate of the artist

Artist: The Wave Pictures.     Album: Puncture my Pride

The Wave Pictures sounds like they belong on the film soundtrack to High Fidelity. They have that anachronistic tenderness that was last seen in late ’60s folk songs or ’80s UK new romantic bands like The Smiths, New Order, and The Waterboys. The proof? They mix strummed acoustic guitars, fiddles, pop saxophones, Beatles-esque backup vocals and melodies that borrow from folk songs.  In “Now You Are Pregnant,” singer David Tattersall lilts like Morissey, while “Holding Hands” rocks out in full psychedelic, post-punk mode. The topics that Tattersall writes about include: love (of course), the angst of being a writer, scultpture and marmalade, alienation, isolation, and forgetting about all the pain in alcohol and cigarettes. And he uses repetition to drive the point home, as well as sometimes awkward and dramatic pauses in the middle of his tunes.

Some the lyrics border on the inane, but with the band rawk-ing out underneath, it doesn’t matter. You get carried along in the wave of their testosterone-laden, alcohol-tinged whining. Puncture My Pride is then a lament on the hubris of the modern day world that relegates the artist to the pub, written in the key of folk. 

 

DETAILS: 

12 MP3s encoded in 192 kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo. All files: 65 MB. Total runtime: 47:09  

EP released for free exclusively on the Team Love Library. (Requires a signup.)  http://library.team-love.com

Artist website:  http://www.thewavepictures.com/

Computer Truck’s riotous toy party dance music for daft punks

Computer Truck’s “Rock The Boulevard, Reach The Bourgeois.”

Combine a lifetime of playing Family Nintendo and an innate talent for concocting thick electro beats and you get Computer Truck’s first release on the netlabel Da! Heard-it Records (DHR) entitled “Rock The Boulevard, Reach The Bourgeois.”

Released way back in September 2006, the 1-hour long album is 16 full tracks of nonstop enjoyment that goes from Daft Punk-y breakdance anthems to tunes that sound like 808 State (does anyone still remember them?) and The Orb, mixed with a palette of 8-bit sounds and a knowledge of hip hop. His vocal edits are crazy, quick-cutting from syllable to syllable. His tunes are monstrous, chunky, but always danceable — even if you have to twitch like a zombie to do it. This is lovely upbeat electronic chaos, everything melodic. No artsy-fartsy texturing, just wonderfully utilitarian dance music. Solid work from a french genius composer who describes his music as “riot toy party music.”

Also, if you’re in San Francisco this week, Computer Truck is playing live with StarPause at SpaceGallery on Thursday January 15th. Details of the gig here, here and here.

FILE DETAILS: 16 MP3s encoded as 256 VBR kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo.

DOWNLOAD LINKS:
Download album in one zip file (67 MB).

Album page on netlabel Da!Heard-it Records.

ARTIST BIO:
Artist writeup on netlabel page.