TIME FRAUD “Cry Me A Highway" C18 ( F r e a k s )

Nick Wortham (Healers) has a new solo project, Time Fraud, and it’s a beacon of super-playful, lo-fi synth-pop pastel prismatix, something akin to a test-tube baby cooked up with equal parts The Faint and Mates of State in mind. 

Whimsical organic instrumentation meets gritty synth hints, off-kilter/pop-punky vocals, drum machine drive & good ol’ fashioned DIY work ethic* on “Cry Me A Highway”, and it’s a pretty enjoyable earworm you’ll find yourself humming along with by the second pass.

https://timefraud.bandcamp.com/

and/or

http://freakslabel.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

*per NW’s bio, the Vox were recorded in the cab of his truck with a mic hanging from the rearview.

WATKINS / PEACOCK “Acid Escape Vol 2” C38 ( F r e a k s )

Oakland’s Zachary James Watkins & Ross Peacock play an unwieldy blend of glitched-out, acid-fried-to-a-crisp dub with requisite bass finesse, but also drum machine v. hand percussion drive, dying sampled keyboards, deliciously distracting noise/synth elements & a sneaky sonority that plays peek-a-boo pretty much the whole fuckin’ time, keeping the listener perpetually on the edge of their ear. 

Hard to tell what mood this tape would best help to achieve other than “confused” or “onset of a bad acid trip at the club”…which, at the very least, keeps it interesting, right?

https://watkinspeacock.bandcamp.com/

and/or

http://freakslabel.com/#/watkinspeacock-acid-escape-vol-2/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

MAX NORDILE "Hair Clinic" C22 (Freaks)

Max Nordile may or may not have set up a flash mob to improv with dedicatedly out of tune instruments in the middle of one of Chinatown’s six-way crosswalks during peak rush hour traffic. He then, possibly, moved the party on south two blocks to an underpass camp to better commit his mumble-fess'd transit-gressions amongst the rapt & swaddled, possessed & dispossessed. The possible chronology is suspect. 

The point is to make not a one hot lick 
o’ sense of sound or sensation, but many?

Know trumpets and crossing signals were herd
-ed in the making of this dis(t)reet recording.

Oakland has no sound problems having problems with sound 
solutions. (GRN + GNR = NRGX2)

"Fucking science”, indeed. 

Disorient yourself accordingly…

https://thesefreaks.bandcamp.com/album/hair-clinic

and/or

http://freakslabel.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

BRIAN TESTER “Spectral Capital 2 & 3” C55 (Freaks)

Brian Tester’s newest work, “Spectral Capital 2 & 3”, starts out by building up a tipsy base of amelodic, busy-body techno beats…only to let devil-may-care loose with swirls of gaudy swells, shrill drones, & dirty-neon phasings to whoosh on by like fog that’s late for a date and bury those beats under an avalanche of distress. The mess is where the jam is at and BT keeps it unpredictable and chaotic amidst the faux-metronomic aesthetic. When not subverting the technosphere, BT wades arms first into a sea of dying machine moans, electric hum, organic pulse, and power-vac static. This is all just side 1. Side 2 plays much the same game, but with a different, jammier palette, favoring greater emphasis on space, hypnotism, groove, & release. Throughout the hour-long journey, entropy and stagger are the major driving, cohesive forces, but there are certainly some parts to tap the toes along with and other parts to nod-off to. Just don’t plan on getting comfortable. Don’t plan on anything other than ceaseless stimulation and bewilderment and you’ll be fine. Probably.

https://thesefreaks.bandcamp.com/album/spectral-capital-2-3

and/or

http://freakslabel.com/

—Jacob An Kittenplan

DREAM “Live Dream Demonstration” C51 (Freaks)

Oakland’s very own Dream raids the warehouse of 90s noisy dream-pop pedals, loop stations, & drum machines, & then cobbles together a living, breathing, Frankensteinian collage of hazy disorientation and sway. Through shimmering synth waves, distant, dissociated vocal melodies, anti-sync percussive textures & modular joy-stickery-recurrence, “Live Dream Demonstration” drags the listener along a chalk-outline, separating "hypnotic" and "uneasy", smearing dust & ash sporadically across their venn intersections, where smooth patch cable might weave into skin.

https://thesefreaks.bandcamp.com/album/live-dream-demonstration
and/or
http://freakslabel.com/

-- Jacob An Kittenplan