DEATHCOUNT IN SILICONE VALLEY “Acheron” (Extreme Ultimate)

Prisms collide with Klaus Schultze on this pixelated tape from London’s Andrew Nixon, and a VHS aurora borealis concentrates, penetrates, and dissipates all listeners at a molecular level. I’m writing this review now through thought synapses captured by my computer in the nanoseconds before I became part of the universe.

Extreme Ultimate is the name of the label. Extreme ultimate is the sensation of cosmic power one gets while listening to this tape. Before one is obliterated of course.

Nixon’s synths pulse and oscillate, drone and hover, and gaze out into vast expanse of space and time. The compositions ruminate on our place within existence, and brim with nostalgia. They venerate Science and Discovery, and see the future, which is great beyond our limited imaginations.

If I had to choose (and I don’t, they just strike me), “Habitual Arp Worship” and “The Car” are simply excellent. John Carpenter meets Vangelis, and all the other synth soundtrack masters. Superb.

https://extremeultimate.bandcamp.com/

https://extremeultimate.bandcamp.com/album/acheron

--Ryan Masteller

CREMATOR“Phase Eletronique” C40 (Extreme Ultimate)

Listening to this tape reminded me of how there are no stupid questions, just stupid people. For example, “when one is cremated, do the ashes still contain DNA?” or “do sawtooth sinewaves get cavities?” “If you slam the letter ‘c’ into a letter ‘l’ from left to right, it becomes a ‘d’, so, really, like, how closely related were Buchla and the Buddha?”

Sides A & B are opposing brain hemispheres. Meet the former, a cold, handheld journey through the science fiction shelves’ ravenous dustbunny colonies. Stupid beasts bump heads, turn another direction, and employ their muscle memories to scuffle off, forage, and procreate elsewhere. Twenty minutes later, meet a truly colder half, a dedicated, qualitative study of protein-reactions and their decay, with cortisol levels augmented and CT scans scheduled every hour, on the hour. Axis upon axis upon axis of vantages are efficiently filed away for a study few have legal access to, for fear of future revolt. From what?

Through retrospect, side A now feels warm, a saga told by an aphasiac cyborg. B shows the expressive negatives of daily life on a hidden plain. Nothing ugly or beautiful or good or evil or strange; just teeming with life, and well worth repeated observations.

www.cremator.bandcamp.com

and/or

www.extremeultimate.com

https://extremeultimate.bandcamp.com/music

- - Jacob An Kittenplan