Black Dice - Broken Ear Record

Genre experimental Publisher DFA/Astralwerks External Links Official Website DFA/Astralwerks

Dear reader, your humble reviewer is in something of a quandary. He has the Black Dice album in front of him, and needs to write several hundred words on the topic; hopefully well-chosen ones that are combined together in pleasing and somewhat humourous ways to provide you, the reader, with a modicum of entertainment and also leave you informed about the relative merits of the album in question.Here, then, is the review:

Broken Ear Record is shit.

Now, perhaps the weather? A discussion of the retirement of the Routemaster buses in London? Or perhaps a stringent debate on the flat tax economies of Eastern European companies such as Estonia, and whether they would be appropriate for Western Europe? Oh, you want more about the record?

Festering elephant droppings that have been standing in the savannah for a week, swarming with flies.

Returning back to the fascinating subject of Estonia. Adopting a flat tax structure in 1994, the former Eastern bloc country has surged ahead economically, leading some experts to call for a Europe-wide adoption of the system. However, many economists believe that Estonia's recovery is not solely down to the changes in tax regime, and also warn that the rosy picture painted by economic figures is undermined by looking at other aspects of Estonia's government, such as its social security system - what's that? You insist on a proper review? Balderdash! I'm trying to inform you about a serious subject and all you can think about is music? Well, if you insist.

My two one-sentence reviews were a little harsh; this record is clearly not for me, but I'll do my best. Broken Ear Record is the third album from Brooklyn-based band Black Dice. Formed in 1997, they've been producing their own kind of musique concrete for nine years now, albeit with debts to lumaries such as Throbbing Gristle and The Boredoms. They caught the attention of uber-hip dance outfit DFA, with the result being that this album the first to be released on DFA's boutique label (via Astralwerks).

Right, that's the biographical information...you see, the problem with reviewing noise records is that they're rather hard to review. It's not that I don't like them; indeed, I spent a mindblowing afternoon a year or so back listening to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music with headphones cranked all the way up. They're just a little awkward to talk about, and Broken Ear Record doesn't help by being rather boring. The opener, "Shining Vow" is eight minutes of monotony punctuated by a mixture of car sounds and a Nintendo that somebody left on in the studio. Any hopes of improvement are dashed by "Smiling Off," which has a beat, but not much else, and yet it drags on for nine minutes. The album continues on in this rather depressing manner, although I did quite like "Street Dude" which sounds a little like The Edge albeit in a stretched, looped, and tortured to infinity while being swamped with glitchy noises way. A lovely image, I'm sure you'll agree. And the final song, "Motorcycle," with some fun sonic screams straight from a 1974 broadcast of Doctor Who, isn't too bad either.

But unfortunately, the album fails for me. It's not as exciting, intricate, or doom-laden as say, Godspeed You Black Emperor! There's none of the arrogance of Metal Machine Music, or any attempt to subvert or shock like you'd find in Throbbing Gristle, or in the mesmerizing sounds of Plastikman. Instead, the album just disappears into the ether with little effect; I had to listen to it several times before I managed to get to the end without going off and doing something more interesting instead. Like looking at Estonian tax regimes. To be honest, I advise you do the same.

Come back next week, when we'll talk about farm subsidies in France!