Broken Ear Record
DFA, 2005
rating: 4.5/5
reviewer: matt weir


My Journal

Day 1: August 15, 2005

I download the new Black Dice record today. I get really excited and listen to Broken Ear Record drunk on gin with my friends. We all agree the album is not as forceful or compelling as the last two BD full-lengths. We are surprised we can nod our heads to every song. "Smiling Off" proves to be the best track on the album, a bizarre nine-minute journey that blossoms into a bona fide noise single four minutes into the chaos. And it is the single! The record is pretty good... three point five out of five.

Day 2: August 16, 2005

I listen to the album three times today. Oh man, Black Dice are totally brilliant. Creature Comforts and Beaches and Canyons were both overwhelmingly cohesive records, and after much pondering alone in my closet-sized apartment, I think I've found the concept behind this effort. Broken Ear Record is Black Dice's attempt to make a mainstream album. And how could the noise tendencies of Black Dice be mainstream? By bringing the R&B rap funk urban beats! Seriously, you can nod to the whole record—especially "Smiling Off" and the Talking-Heads-meets-dying-robot-meets-cannibal-anthem of "Motorcycle." There's even a song called "Street Dude." Maybe now, with DFA connected to major label distribution -- via Astralwerks -- the Dicers felt they might as well pretend they can be a radio band. And then they laugh their heads off as they make an awesome noise-dance record. "Smiling Off" is still awesome, but "Motorcycle" is closest to the best track they've ever recorded. And "Snarly Yow" is carpet rave... all textured beats. This whole record amazes me, even the too-short repetitive "ABA." How can they come around and do this every time? God damn! Five out of five.

Day 3: August 17, 2005

The problem with Broken Ear Record is that, although it's a very, very good Black Dice album, it doesn't introduce any new sounds. Beaches and Canyons was a watershed of shimmering guitars, psychedelia, and tribal rhythms. Creature Comforts also opened up a whole new world of foreboding animal and jungle noises, while doubling the rhythmic complexity. Only "Motorcycle" really pushes Black Dice forward on this album, using live instrumentation over a repetitive bass drum to hit new heights of tribal noise insanity before breaking apart. "Twins" also succeeds admirably by letting squeals talk to squeaks, pulsing with wattage; "Twins" single-handedly makes the Dicers sound more like a real band than any other DFA-era track. Four out of five.

Day 4: August 18, 2005

Okay, so "Smiling Off," "Twins," and "Motorcycle" are all really awesome Black Dice songs. And "Snarly Yow" rules, too. But I've started skipping the others. Four out of five.

Day 5: August 19, 2005

I only listen to "Street Dude" today. It's really, really great. I should ride my bike more often. Four point five out of five.

Day 6: August 20, 2005

Holy shit! "Snarly Yow" is totally crazy! Why didn't I realize how awesome it is before? The cranky tuba meets static stomp gets a little repetitive... but hey, I guess the future will be pretty repetitive too, won't it? Five out of five.

Day 7: August 21, 2005

I try to put "Motorcycle" on at a party. It works for like two minutes. Five out of five.

Day 8: August 22, 2005

I take a break from Black Dice today. I drive down the highway with my little brother in our Saturn screaming "Crazy in Love" and "Dancing in the Dark." I can't rate the album today, I guess.

Day 8: August 23, 2005

This album just doesn't bewilder me like old Black Dice records. "Big Drop" and "Creature" really terrify me, and there's nothing as sonically vicious on Broken Ear Record. Maybe that's my fault -- for expecting such chaos -- because that's definitely not the goal here. The goal here is a noise-dance album, and they succeed admirably. But man, I just love it when the Dice men freak me out. Four point five out of five.

Day 22: September 6, 2005

I'm back in Chicago after a two-week journey through Montana to see mountains and bison and prairie dogs and national parks and lightning storms and blood-red moons and coyotes. Listening to the new Black Dice album just didn't cut it against the awesome power of nature, although Beaches and Canyons and Creature Comforts still did. I guess I have to get used to Broken Ear Record as an urban noise-dance album, not a monolithic taser of frightful emotion. "Heavy Manners" does try to static me out and "Snarly Yow" does indeed snarl... but alas. At least it's a pretty awesome urban noise-dance record. Four out of five.

Day 23, September 7, 2005

Oh yeah, and the album is not as much of a continuation of "Cone Toaster" as I'm guessing people will say. "Snarly Yow" and "Smiling Off" are, but the rest is just Black Dice making Black Dice music. You know, I should really stop thinking about it as a dance album and accept Broken Ear Record as an album of sounds. I keep trying to throw structure and my own trappings onto it, calling it an attempt at mainstream noise and whatnot. I don't care that Tiny Mix Tapes seems to have more inflated scores than other music sites; this is an awesome album and Black Dice are an awesome band. Four point five out of five.

Day 24, September 8, 2005

Okay, I waited a day and I still feel like I did yesterday. Print it. Four point five out of five.

Day 3,250,294, December 45, 2050

My wife and I were heading out of the space-house for New Year's but had to come back to get my laser-heart. We open the door to find our grandkids -- and their clones -- throwing a party in the docking station. They're drinking rocket-ahol and listening to my old mp3s while two of the kids alien-sex (I hope it's just a fad like the galaxy-news says) each other in the corner. "Motorcycle" is blaring. Maybe now it's just a four of five... eh.

1. Snarly Yow
2. 2. Smiling Off
3. Heavy Manners
4. ABA
5. Street Dude
6. Twins
7. Motorcycle

Creature Comforts
DFA/Fat Cat, 2004
rating: 5/5
reviewer: leveer


Black Dice themselves probably have the right idea when it comes to listening to this album. When I interviewed them, they said that at a listening party with their pals Animal Collective they kept laughing at the sounds they heard on the album, because they're so far out there. For their entire history, Black Dice have been transient in their style, never staying in one comfortable place for too long. First it was flat out thrash, then they mediated that with more abstract sounds, and finally abandoned the thrash altogether on their stellar Beaches & Canyons, adopting some elements of found sound to go with the otherworldly drones. Then came the rhythmic and almost danceable "Cone Toaster" single, which was followed by a release on the complete opposite end of the spectrum with the meditative Miles of Smiles EP. And that brings us up to Creature Comforts.

Now, as I hinted at above, an open mind and possibly a sense of humor are essential to accessing this album. I feel like if you're interested in Black Dice, I shouldn't have to tell you that; but I'm sure Black Dice would be first to attest that people are often stuck in their preferences. So, now you're ready to just let the music flow over you, with no preconceived notions, right? Of course not. And I might be making assumptions here, but I think this album banks on that fact heavily. Which is to say this record strikes out into territory that hasn't been explored from a "rock" standpoint, hoping to make the listener say "What the fuck?" But, to back off of that position for a moment, this isn't just art for art's sake. These songs are well thought out and pleasant to listen to, if you're into this sort of thing. Drums have largely been abandoned, and sounds that I can't identify drive most of the songs rhythmically. That's right, most of the songs are rhythmic. They get your body interested with the rhythm, and then fuck your mind with the sounds.

I don't know if this is one of the bravest or boldest albums of the year, but its definitely one of the neatest. I find music all the time that creates contexts for musics that I had previously thought completely individual and incomparable, which is what I might call this album. I hope I'd be wrong and there's a heap of similar stuff lurking as precedent somewhere in the shadows of music. But, if I would be right in doing so, kudos to you, Black Dice. Fuck 'em.

1. Cloud Pleaser
2. Treetops
3. Island
4. Creature
5. Live Loop
6. Skeleton
7. Schwip Schwap
8. Night Flight

Miles of Smiles EP
DFA, 2004
rating: 4/5
reviewer: mr p


In the transition from the Renaissance period to Baroque, there began a dramatic shift in music. Since music before 1600s was based typically on religious texts, the structure of music was implicit: the song ended when the text ended. In the Baroque period, however, instrumental music started to be taken seriously for the first time. This marked a problem for composers. If there were no texts for instrumental music, when did the music end? This is where paradigmatic musical structures were born and has since developed into a variety of flavors throughout the next few centuries.

But after all these years of organizing sound within prescribed structures, the more experimental music of the last century deconstructs the rigid structures leftover from previous movements, allowing the sounds themselves to dictate the form; either that, or they simply attempt to destroy the idea of form altogether. From process music to indeterminacy, John Cage to Phill Niblock, modern songwriters have been relentlessly tinkering with the traditional sensibilities of what structure is and how one goes about circumventing it.

Black Dice's latest release, Miles of Smiles, is a good example. Beginning with a smooth, watery sound which crescendos for nearly half of its total 13 minutes, the track suddenly cuts to a dry percussive sound -- a stark contrast to say the least. It's precisely this reliance on contrasting sound colors that makes the track so affective. Without it, the track would have no structure, aside from perhaps a linear one. And the fact that the two polar sounds eventually coalesce, along with a surprising marching band sample, underscores the structure's reliance on the sound colors to tell the musical narrative rather than a pre-determined structure.

Although the title track (originally written for The Poetry of Sex art exhibit in Tokyo) isn't too far removed from the captivating sounds of 2002's Beaches and Canyons, it certainly shows a progression for the band. Perhaps the most obvious is in its replacement of Hisham Bharoocha's dynamic drumming with a more cut  paste, musique-concrete-style execution, rendering a less "rock-oriented" effort. Contrastingly, subsequent track "Trip Dude Delay" is much closer to the sounds of Beaches and Canyons, as it was played live many times around that album's release. This song, too, pits opposing sound colors in a sonic deathmatch, telling a haunting tale through its music. (Since this is an older track, however, it's more a vestigial remain than an indicator of what the upcoming full-length might sound like.)

It's interesting to play these tracks right after a Bach fugue or Vivaldi concerto, as the influence of the styles that came from the next few centuries are either adapted or deconstructed in Black Dice's music. Although it can be counterproductive to historicize Black Dice's music in such a linear fashion, I find it extremely exciting that these young noise-mongers are willing to go out on such far-reaching limbs while stringing their influences with them. I mean, it was only a few years ago when they were best known for their violent live shows, screaming vocals, and destructive take on hardcore music. Obviously, repetition isn't their forte. With just two tracks at around 28-minutes in length, Black Dice have created yet another release stimulating on both a musical and intellectual level, showing traces of their past and hints of their future. Consequently, Miles of Smiles is a good indication that their forthcoming full-length, Creature Comforts, could very well be their most pronounced statement yet.

1. Miles of Smiles
2. Trip Dude Delay