ARTICLES
Benoît Pioulard's Précis
Label: Dynamophone
Label: Hidden Shoal

ALBUMS
Aemae
A Lily
Arc Lab
Blotnik Brothers
Gui Boratto
Cagesan
Jeremy Caulfield
Loren Dent
Do Make Say Think
Eats Tapes
Enduser
Domink Eulberg
Explosions in the Sky
Michael Fahres
The Field
Frivolous
Maximilian Hecker
Hug
Hush Arbors
Jan-M. Iversen
Espen Jørgensen
Kattoo
O.Lamm
Bruce Levingston
Tobias Lilja
Lusine
Marcia Blaine School
The Missing Ensemble
Nebulo
Ölvis
Charlemagne Palestine
Palomar
Pornopop
The Postmarks
Propergol Y Colargol
The Retail Sectors
R/R Coseboom
Sankt Otten
Scratch Massive
Slow Dancing Society
Stars of the Lid
subtractiveLAD
Sunosis
Aoki Takamasa
Amon Tobin
Tokyo Mask
Kate Wax
Wes Willenbring
Windmill

COMPILATIONS/MIXES
Chaos.Lovers
Cryosphere
Hub: 2004-2005
Rufs
Satoshi Tomiie

3" /7" /10"/12"/EPs
Agnes
AM/PM
Arctic Sunrise
Audion
Characterize 1
Dartriix
Death is Nothing To Fear
Don't Be A Stranger
Einóma
Fusiphorm
Heartthrob
Human Nature
Infant Cycle / Antmanuv
Lilienweiss
Luci
Mauve
Paco Osuna
Ben Parris
Carola Pisaturo
Portable
Sutekh
System
Aoki Takamasa
Cortney Tidwell
Andy Vaz

Tokyo Mask: Hinterlands
Low Impedance

Kostas Karamitas' first full-length Tokyo Mask album Hinterlands alternates between tribal ambient settings haunted by shuddering guitars and distorted voice samples and slow, drum-and-bass explorations of a dark dub-hop character. After “Critical Mass” inaugurates the album with an industrial drone of steely shudders and factory noises, a muted horn rises from the ashes in “Queen of Crossroads.” But it's the track's rumbling bass and thwacking snare groove that strongly indicates that Hinterlands has more in common with Bill Laswell's dark ambient style than it does any IDM-related genre.

Even so, the heavy rhythm emphasis on tribal cuts like “Oil and Stone,” “Like You Perverts,” and “The Miraculous Erector” argue that Karamitas' music is even more kin to the Sly and Robbie albums Drum and Bass Strip to the Bone and, to a lesser degree, Rhythm Killers. Keening train whistles in “Oil and Stone” even appear to nod in the direction of Kraftwerk's Trans-Europe Express during the tune's journey through the African Congo. In general, Tokyo Mask's music presents a harrowing and nightmarish dub mutation that simulates a disorientated Opium-induced state. Devotees of Laswell's Hear No Evil and the Material outing Hallucination Engine should find much to like about Hinterlands too.

April 2007