Drop the Lime: This Means Forever
Tigerbeat6

Born and raised in New York City, Drop the Lime (L. Venezia) gives his thunderously epic punk-meets-breakcore sound an unusual twist with the incorporation of movie samples, occasional pop elements, and experimental techniques culled from Bard College studies under experimental electronic pioneer Richard Teitelbaum; Venezia himself calls the final product, the 54-minute This Means Forever, “a mixture of Fugazi, Luigi Nono, and DJ Hype” or, according to a sleeve note, “an album of passionate disaster.”

Irritated by the monotony of dance music, Drop the Lime fills every bar with fierce jungle breaks and bass throbs, and mercilessly bombards the listener with all manner of hyperkinetic mayhem, the album's dizzying BPM deliberately aping the frenetic pace of modern culture. A collage sensibility reigns throughout with Venezia treating the breakcore genre elastically, pummeling it into newfound shapes as compositional structures constantly implode. The seething “Shaken” sets the apocalyptic tone immediately with its tortured, goth-punk vocals and convulsive onslaught.

In all likelihood, you'll find yourself thoroughly spent by album's end (“Never, Nah” seems to move through literally hundreds of shredded micro-episodes—cinematic, breakcore, someone's “New York City, make some noise!” stage command stretched into a seething wail—during its 5-minute span) and at times the music is verges on brain-addling (“Rad Girl Killy”), even painful (the merciless pounding of “Topolino”). At the same time, Venezia's smart enough to include occasional moments of respite. Despite its skittering breaks and chopped vocals, the uncharacteristically sunny “Dubbio” flirts with pop song conventions while the becalmed orchestral coda “Tivoli Clinic (10.28.00)” could have fit comfortably onto Pop Ambient 2005; sometimes he even lets the breaks breathe (the Photek-led charge on “Rocker Party”). Still, while moments of contrast do appear, the general style is more accurately represented by something like the hilariously amped “Amrcrd Gold” which sounds like Nino Rota's worst nightmare.

April 2005