Broken Machine Films presents… and Twin
Monoliths join forces on an excursion of thrift tape manips and “beats and some
effects” on this thing called “Black Boxxes.” Maybe just maybe black monoliths.
Not unlike the one they found on the moon that one time. Alien, I think it was.
“Black Boxxes” is an alien thing. It remains fixed and upright, and if it had
eyes, it would be staring right at you. Thank god this thing doesn’t have eyes
– that would be unnerving.
Glowing like radioactive vaporwave (because
isn’t that what Illuminated Paths is known for?), “Black Boxxes” weaves
answering machine messages into the mix for weird and unsettling flavor,
sometimes coated in effects for maximum schizophrenic Black Lodge distress. The
effects are squeamish, the beats slushy, allowing the source material to shine
like the unearthed treasure that it is. Voices appear like ghosts, telling
stories that maybe shouldn’t be told, maybe HAVE to be told. Everything
together coalesces into a slab of pure life, maybe pink and diluted, maybe
upside down or suffering from food poisoning, but still there, groping through
the haze and begging for your attention.
“Black Boxxes” or black monoliths? Proof of
alien intelligence or just recovered crash site data? Why not both? The
thorough documentation of “we don’t know what that was, we didn’t see anything”
run through popular algorithms reaches beyond and through the library shadows
to experience new life. You should expect it to wriggle under the skin of your
arms in vast black wormlike ripples. How sound does that, I’ll never know. Just
get me as far away from the glowing center as possible before I become one of
them.
--Ryan