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Container
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Zen Land

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Francesco Tristano

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Container: LP
Spectrum Spools

While Spectrum Spools releases aren't ambient, they're not noise either. One powerful exception to that rule, however, might be LP, the third full-length collection from Ren Schofield under the Container name (oddly, the prosaic title of the release was also used for his 2011 Container debut and 2012 follow-up). Grinding with single-minded determination, his raw meldings of throbbing synths and skeletal beats pulsate without pause for three to four minutes at a time.

Speaking of which, the twenty-seven-minute LP is a short but event-packed ride, so much so that one imagines Schofield might have had The Ramones' debut in mind as his model (Joey and company famously squeezed fourteen songs into the album's twenty-nine minutes). And while one might find the artists' respective albums filed in different record store sections, they share a renegade, take-no-prisoners punk sensibility.

Fittingly, a feedback squeal introduces the opening cut “Eject,” a move that immediately establishes the material's hellacious spirit, and the adrenaline-fueled barrage of relentlessly hammering rhythms that follows does little to alter the impression. In a surprising nod in dance music's direction, “Cushion” oozes an acid vibe, though no should be too surprised when the track veers off into siren-laden territory. “Appliance” likewise wouldn't sound out of place blasting out of a particularly open-minded club, especially when its groove roars with an industrial-strength relentlessness common to hard techno.

As noisy as these Container tracks are, they retain their accessibility, due in large part to their simple design and undeniable rhythmic intensity. If LP proves anything, it's that punk has been so completely assimilated by now that its presence in multiple genres, techno and experimental electronic music among them, no longer proves jarring.

June 2015