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.

Eat Rabbit’s videogame zaniness in “Kiss the Dolphin”

Eat Rabbit – Kiss The Dolphin

In two words: crazy,  funny. Lyon-based artist Eat Rabbit pushes himself to the limit with this 14-track album that fuses old-school TB808 beats with insane electro elements resulting in a break-dancing frenzy. Sounds like early 808State, Orbital, and even Prodigy if you played Prodigy’s tracks about 30 BPM faster than the original speed (and if they took themselves less seriously).

A meaty synth bass encourages your brain to urinate in the album opener “Waves of Piss” but that’s probably the most serious track on there. Starting with “Monsieur Dauphin” in track 2, you get fast-paced bouncy tracks with vocal snippets, and craziness everywhere. The samples fly about, the beat is relentless and hyperkinetic. Adult content and cuss words abound on “Caviar on a Booty” but then are spaced out childishly, even mixing in the theme from the Batman TV show, making it about as adult as a SpongeBob porno. “The Book of the Dead Seahorses” sounds like a soundtrack for a Wii game featuring murdering rabbits with Attention Deficit Disorder.

In summary: “Kiss the Dolphin” is a zany, tongue-in-cheek soundtrack to the hilarious side-scrolling adventure videogame which we like to call ‘life in the 21st century.’ Trust me, it’s 49 minutes of the most fun you’ll ever have without playing your Wii.

DETAILS

Release page on Da! Heard It Records

http://www.daheardit-records.net/en/discography/dhr10/

Eat Rabbit discography on Discogs

http://www.discogs.com/artist/Eat+Rabbit

Eat Rabbit on MySpace

http://www.myspace.com/eatrabbit

In two words: crazy,  funny. Lyon-based artist Eat Rabbit pushes himself to the limit with this 14-track album that fuses old-school TB808 beats with insane electro elements resulting in a break-dancing frenzy. Sounds like early 808State, Orbital, and even Prodigy if you played Prodigy’s tracks about 30 BPM faster than the original speed (and if they took themselves less seriously).

Eat Rabbit's cover for Kiss the Dolphin

A meaty synth bass encourages your brain to urinate in the album opener “Waves of Piss” but that’s probably the most serious track on there. Starting with “Monsieur Dauphin” in track 2, you get fast-paced bouncy tracks with vocal snippets, and craziness everywhere. The samples fly about, the beat is relentless and hyperkinetic. Adult content and cuss words abound on “Caviar on a Booty” but then are spaced out childishly, even mixing in the theme from the Batman TV show, making it about as adult as a SpongeBob porno. “The Book of the Dead Seahorses” sounds like a soundtrack for a Wii game featuring murdering rabbits with Attention Deficit Disorder.

In summary: “Kiss the Dolphin” is a zany, tongue-in-cheek soundtrack to the hilarious side-scrolling adventure videogame which we like to call ‘life in the 21st century.’ Trust me, it’s 49 minutes of the most fun you’ll ever have without playing your Wii.

DETAILS:
14 mp3s encoded at 256 kbps, 44.1 kHz stereo.
Total Run time: 48:56

Download whole album in one zip file. [55 MB]

Album’s release page on Da! Heard It Records (netlabel)

Eat Rabbit discography on Discogs

Eat Rabbit on MySpace

Socket Science’s perfectly formulated electropop in Pulver Stunts

Socket Science's debut album Pulver Stunts

Artist: Socket Science
Album: Pulver Stunts
Netlabel: Astor Bell

The trick to electro pop is letting your machines sing for you. It’s not techno which is all one massive groove. It’s not minimal house which is a groove with the least number of intruments. Rather, it is utilizing the patterns of a pop song, and letting the synthesizers sing your melodic lines in place of some gaunt warbly dude with painted nails who will concoct witticisms about suicide and leprosy and then hog all the girls after the show.

Socket Science’s debut album Pulver Stunts[ASTOR002] is sweet electro pop peppered with IDM and ethnic instruments (bells, flutes, percussion) and which veers into minimal house every now and then. But on tracks like the epic “Honduration” and the bouncy “Bits & Breezes,” you get the precise formulation of groovy beats and melodic flight that make for blissful electro pop. It’s so good, you don’t want those two tracks to end.

I have a feeling Socket Science (aka Don Simon, co-manager of netlabel Astor Bell) is using his software (sounds like Propellerheads Reason to me) in order to resurrect the Orb, Orbital, (early) BT, and 808State for the 21st century’s ignorant ears. Hearken, O listener.

6 MP3s encoded at 320 kbps bitrate, 44.1 kHz stereo.
Total running time: 29 minutes.

LINKS:

Download the entire EP in one zip file from the netlabel release page.

Socket Science artist page on the Astor Bell Netlabel.

Socket Science on MySpace.

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.