Crystal Fantasy / Hair Police
(Liquid Death / Hello Pussy) Used Split 10-inch $4.00
Tracks by the Milwaukee quartet are from another world, “one where Lisa Frank designs come to life, roads are built of rainbows and the sky is illuminated by every color across the spectrum,” according to Adam Strohm. “Modulated vocals [and] synthesized squiggles cross a field of minimalist fluorescent electronics as tasteful effects accompany the dialogue,” after which Hair Police seem “positively ugly,” with their “mismatched pieces and sharp edges, shuddering oscillations [that] overpower static squeals…, sounds drown[ing] under sounds, and human screams [getting] swallowed in the polluted mix…. The two groups certainly share a determination to explore the far reaches…, [with] Crystal Fantasy drift[ing] into cartoon clouds and Hair Police writhing underground.”
Perverse
(Liquid Death / Hello Pussy) Used CD $5.00
Andy Ortmann blends the natural properties of found sounds and electronics to create a truly perverse beauty, a synthesis of the classically musical with the classically noisy — feedback, electronic manipulations and musique concrète. This 2004 disc is “one of an unsettling uncertainty, made all the more noticeable by its own self-assuredness. For the listener who … likes music to embark upon fresh, exciting, dangerous journeys navigated by nervous idiosyncrasies and unspoken compulsions” and “can stomach mangled baby’s cries, feedback, water and deconstructed industrial rhythms, this record gives you all that and more…. Dirty and secretly thrilling.” Includes the grotesque yet beautiful “Convulsion Expulsion” video by controversial Chicago underground filmmaker Usama Alshaibi.