Articles
Artist Speaks: Rick Wade
Mico Nonet's Top 10
Solvent's Top 10
Ten Questions: Autistici

Albums
An On Bast
Aster
Autistici
Balmorhea
Beneva vs. Clark Nova
Bersarin Quartett
Bong-Ra
Carlos y Gaby
Lawrence English
Coniglio-Marzorati
Daedelus
Detritus
Dom Mino'
Yair Etziony
Evangelista
Fear Falls Burning
Fluorescent Grey
Forestflies
Heribert Friedl
Glowstyx
Inlandsis
KiloWatts
Krill.minima
M.B + E.D.A.
Mico Nonet
Alfredo Costa Monteiro
Németh
David Newlyn
orchestramaxfieldparrish
Pedro
Qebo
Jose Luis Redondo
The Retail Sectors
Robedoor
Scorn
Snöleoparden
Take
Taunus
Temposhark
Robert Scott Thompson
Asmus Tietchens
Z-arc

Compilations/Mixes
Back to Back Vol. 2
Favourite Places
Future Memories
Nothing Works As Planned
Twin Earth Atlantic

3"/ 7"/ 10"/ 12"/ EPs
Buzzin' Fly Vol 4 Remixes
Franco Cangelli
Cheju
Figurines
Pär Grindvik
Hugo
Gregg Kowalsky
Lerosa
Mico Nonet
Moldy (featuring Juakali)
Take
The Third Man
Andy Vaz

DVD
MONO

Qebo: Wroln
Low Impedance

Wroln finds Qebo (Greek electronica vets Alex Retsis and George Aggelides) doing post-graduate studies in Autechrian sound design with a strong focus on the EP7-Confield period. The duo's second release (Flopper appeared in 2002) offers seven tracks teeming with ricocheting beats, glitch-laden smears, and strangulated rhythms; imagine what a hive of agitated bees with microphones strapped to their bodies might sound like and anchor the results with hyper-active beats and you'll have a fairly good impression of Qebo's style. The uncompromisingly electronic Wroln isn't without appeal, however; unlike Confield, one definitely gets the sense that humans are controlling the machines (rather than vice-versa) and Qebo's sound design may be dense and busy but it's not incoherent. In “Cancer,” suppressed sounds eventually escape the straitjacket and rupture into a streaking stampede of tumbling beats and automated splatter. Some vague trace of hip-hop is even present in the writhing beats of “Deepcore” though admittedly it's so subtle it verges on inaudible; no such concealment attends “Kloink Media” where the rhythms are rather straightforwardly heard, with nary a viral element in sight. The arrhythmic soundscape “S0th5ng” brings Qebo's cinematic strengths to the forefront with the curdling flow of snuffling noises and wipes suggestive of a dying body dragging itself along the night streets, and every noise heard amplified. Musically, the release is lean at thirty-six minutes but the enhanced CD also includes three video treatments by Threepixels, Effekts, and Anthony Squizzato (which, unfortunately, could not be viewed on my system).

March 2008