BLIPVERT "Stop:Skronk:Explode" DTRASH104 Reviews

Chain DLK (www.chaindlk.com)
"Back in the mid 80es the word was used to describe short but super fast paced high-intensity commercials which caused some viewers' nervous systems to overload (some might remember Max Headroom), but Oakland-based Will Redmond reclaimed the term at the beginning of this century. If that is not a clear enough indication of what you are getting yourself into, the title does say it all! "Stop:skronk:explode!" is a ten track disc of crazed pieces made of short interruptions, skronky sounds and quick explosions. Talk about overload, you never get a break here, the blips just keep coming at you, just like D-Trash likes it.
At times it sounds like a colorful and busy video arcade going insane or about to implode, other times it sounds like a bunch of people auditioning sounds from different sample libraries at the same time and with no apparent structure... In the most structured of cases an irreverent and cut up breakbeat glues it all together.  There a tiny number of exceptions to the fury, but you'll have to patiently wait until at least half way through the disc for some resemblance of peacefulness (track 5 a soothing but still somewhat restless and disquieting ambient/lounge track and track 10 is a surprisingly relaxing and entrancing beat-less atmospheric piece that stands in net contrast with everything that just happened before it - think of it as the calm after the storm). It should be obvious that, if you are looking for consistency, you ought to look somewhere else, but if you do like to be startled with sensory overload look no further!!!
Will is known for his openness to experimentation. He lived in NYC and was part of the vibrant downtown music scene for a while. Once a member of NY-based avant-rock group PAK with Ron Anderson, he has collaborated with Elliott Sharp, Time of Orchids, Mambo Matins, Samsara, Muffinhead, DJ Squid etc). Will is one of those people that most Academics would conservatively dismiss as a knucklehead with a computer and too much time on his hands. Yet he really is a progressive Academic himself (NY and SF has a bunch of those, like the great Fred Frith for example) with two Masters degrees in teaching and music compositions and with works featured in places such as Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, NYU, Brooklyn Conservatory and so on and so forth. Whether you are impressed by that or not, is up to you, just give this a listen and decide for yourself."


RegenMag Magazine (www.regenmag.com)
BlipVert is the solo project of Will Redmond, who also plays in a number of other projects, including experimental act Cartridge and minimalist dub act E. Priest. Redmond's solo material runs the gamut from video game music to drum 'n' bass to ambient, but all uniquely spliced together and sped up into a frantic and punishing blur of ever-changing sounds and rhythms. Dub music is just about the last genre anyone would ever describe as frantic, but Redmond manages to make it happen on the first track; as "Peace with Ummem" segues from flute trills and footsteps to studio buzz and drumbeats, the rhythm turns into something fast and distorted but nonetheless possessed of an instrumental reggae flavor. It sounds like Lee "Scratch" Perry getting pulverized by a runaway freight train. "Big Boy Slip" is all abrasive distortion and sudden tempo changes, and "Barbwire Girls" slips seemingly at random between high-BPM hardcore techno and washes of ambience. As if the frenetic nature of his music wasn't enough, Redmond also makes several of his compositions extra creepy with what sound like disturbing playground rhymes, as on "Couch of Soob" and "Tao to a Feel." While Redmond is certainly capable of moving into mellower territory, as on the purely ambient outro "Georges" or the Art of Noise-inspired "Bye Judy, Don't Make 'em Sad," the pure unpredictability of this release is enough to drive a typical techno listener to self-harm. Noise freaks, on the other hand, will eat this up. Visit www.synapsecompound.com for more information on BlipVert and Will Redmond's other projects.



Gothtronic Magazine (www.gothtronic.com)
Originally blipverts were a kind of new high-speed, high-intensity television commercials which caused the nerve systems of certain viewers to overload. Now, this is really the effect that struck me when listening to the album 'Stop:Skronk:Explode of this American madman called Blipvert. In earlier days, when I listened to the songs of Kid 606, they beat me to a jelly. Cutting 50! songs into pieces and rebuild them into a song of four minutes, drove me already up the curtains. Blipvert takes it even one step further. He manages to throw overboard every single form of song structure and creates 'something' with a combination of noise, breakcore and ambient soundscapes. It sounds to me like there is a kind of intergalactical top 40 from another Milky Waysystem that is rumbling to us at a speed of a thousand miles per hour. This goes way too far for me! It might just be unique, but I'm never through with this Blipvert-cd. This is - in a matter of speaking - the most raw electronic record I have ever heard. After this electronic-deathride you will be almost death and in need for quick respiration.
 

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