As part of it’s youth oriented after hours events, Late at Tate Britain is putting on an impressive a programme of installations and a performances in collaboration with Warp Records and artist Jeremy Deller at Tate Britain on December 6.
Inspired by Deller’s ‘History of the World’ and switching roles, producer Oneohtrix Point Never -who’s already demonstrated his close relationship with visual art with a series of collaborations with the likes of Takeshi Murata, aqnb interviewee Nate Boyce and that terrifying Jon Rafman video this year -will be presenting an installation, alongside Glaswegian producers Hudson Mohawke and Rustie. Deller, on the other hand will present a live performance featuring Fairey Brass Band plus a live A/V show from patten and Darkstar.
Apparently removed from YouTube as quickly as it went up this alternate video for Brooklyn producer Oneohtrix Point Never ‘Still Life (betamale)’ dropped yesterday and features a chilling indictment of the culture of enslavement to the LCD screen we’re all too conscious of. Artist Jon Rafman is responsible for this one and confirms a collective fear just by the huge reaction to it.
As said in an essay ‘Harry Burke w/ Metahaven: Metahaven, visibility and the joke’ in Arcadia Missa’s How 2 Sleep Faster #4: “jokes, when politically effective, perform what everybody knew but couldn’t say”. We won’t tell you what’s in the video itself but will warn you, it’s like looking into the eyes of Medusa (the nihilist’s intrepretation, obv).
Oneohtrix Point Never’s R Plus Seven is out on Warp, September 30. **
Between his early eccojams as Chuck Person and 2011’s Replica under his best known alias of Oneohtrix Point Never, Daniel Lopatin’s star has risen into a total change of tack with this return to those not-so-distant Chiptune revival days.
Except that in true OPN fashion, Lopatin does it better than most, with the surreal bounce of ‘Problem Areas’, taken from his forthcoming R Plus Sevenalbum, out on Warp Records, September 30. Echoing the unsettling synthetic vocal samples and frenetic synthesis of James Ferraro’s Farside Virtual, Lopatin’s simulacra of our false utopias reach a new plane of the wonderfully weird, and slightly terrifying. **
These days it’s hard to imagine that location could have any impact on a particular sound. As face-time and neighborhoods give way to avatars and on-line communities, the very concept of a physical field for forging creative relationships is almost a distant memory. That’s except for the ubiquitous London scene of eclectic ‘free pop’ shared and circulated by locals Kwes, Micachu and friends. Their second collaborative work, succinctly summarized in the compound title of Kwesachu Mixtape Vol. 2, the free download is not only an expression of the duo’s exceptional working relationship but the sound of an area, post-grime and UK garage, that is still a ripe source of cultural fusion.
Released the same year as Micachu & The Shapes’ debut album Jewellery and the earlier Filthy Friends Mixtape, 2009’s Vol.1 . was notable for featuring such big names as Romy Madley-Croft of The XX and Hot Chip’s Joe Goddard, alongside lesser-known hip hop, R&B and funk fusion musicians like Ghostpoet, DELS and The Invisible. Now, as Croft and Goddard move on, it’s those earlier artists and their recent success that carries a new crop of interesting young talent showcased on Vol. 2. and if the past is a precedent, one would do well to pay attention.
Members of electronic hybrid Clout! appear in the clunking opener ‘HCHMWBIA’, while hip hop artists Bang On! and Lee Scott offer their acid tongues to the swirling rhythm of ‘So What’. Micachu & the Shapes member Raisa K presages her developing solo project with the chafing pulse of ‘Beast’, along with words from Afrofunk musician Evian Cafun. The singularity of Raisa K’s sound is rivaled only by the squawking saxophone of experimental jazz musician Pete Wareham (Polar Bears, Acoustic Ladyland), in ‘Awol’ to follow. Trailing with the unsettling swing of a mix deconstructed and fragmented by Micachu’s production, that track established rhythm and reason within chaos, in the same way that Micachu’s throaty vocals are oddly soothing as she confirms, “everyone’s screaming, everyone’s crying but you’re still smiling” in the earlier ‘DJ Set’.
That sense of unease and violence is a theme that is a key difference from the more pensive and melancholy Vol. 1. Finding a fire, no doubt inspired and fed by the social unrest seen and felt in recent years, Mercury Prize winner Speech Debelle expostulates over an agenda she started propagating with this year’s Freedom of Speech. An urgent sonic current rushes over her frenetic social commentary as she evokes the anger and insecurity of modern life.
A notable absence is Brother May, with whom Micachu had maintained a close working relationship from her early days through to the mixtape accompanying last year’s live London Sinfonietta collaboration Chopped & Screwed. Yet, long-time Micachu collaborator and understated talent Tirzah is a highlight, where laconic lyrics and unusual vocal inflections make ‘Nothing’ equal parts strange and familiar. As a relic of Micachu’s early days with the loosely defined ‘Cluster Collective’ (as christened by MySpace) it’s clear that collaboration and community is key to fending off fear and keeping things fresh; a sentiment echoed in Kwes & Micachu track ‘DJ Set’ as the latter moans, “the building collapses and I don’t mind the sound of it.”
