Intro
Rost
Visualization
Maze
Pseudonoise
Newbeatrevival2020
CAD [Computer Aided Destruction]
Inkubation
Ueberdosis
Frame Rate Override
Virtual Violence
Transformation
Pb [Lead]
Broken Toy
Cyber Saints
Monofilament String
The
latest release from busy German solo artist Martin
Steinebach on DTA
Records is presented as a pastiche of computer-game gun culture, with
appropriately cute artwork marred only by a spelling error on the back
cover. The intro track, a promising swathe of digital noise, is reminiscent
of Converter,
although the rest of the album shows more variation from the unrelenting
four-to-the-floor assault that such a comparison might suggest. We are
certainly in similar territory here, although much of this album is mid-tempo
or splices machine-ambient passages into the beats in a dancefloor-unfriendly
manner.
Monoid's
modus operandi is to layer simplistic repeating melodies over
busier mechanistic rhythm tracks and a bed of off-white noise - Steinebach
seems to be an unashamed devotee of the cult of copy-and-paste sequencing.
The rhythm programming is much more sophisticated and confident than the
synthesiser lead work, which often comes across (e.g. "Newbeatrevival2020")
as cheesy and childish. To an extent however this is excusable given the
video game aesthetic, particularly on "Transformation"
and "Frame Rate Override", whose name suggests a performance
adjustment for a 3D graphics card. The album works better where the synth
lines are kept minimal and the rhythms are allowed to pull the tracks
along like malignant hordes of machines on the march, such as on "Inkubation"
and the title track. The dissonant ambience of "Cyber Saints"
is rather fetching too, despite the terrible name.
This is not particularly attention-grabbing music but would make good
wallpaper to hack collision-detection code in C++ to. Someone should commission
Steinebach to write the soundtrack for a shoot-em-up.