for DTRASH25 - "Exist"
Reviewed by Freq1c @ freq.org.co.uk

"Exist, collaborative project for Jason Schizoid and .Miq (of noCore, Zymotic, towhomdoweowe and Clipfit, the latter also putting out an album on D-Trash soon) takes a slightly slower (perhaps measured would be a better adjective here) approach to its beat constructions than the full-tilt chaos'n'noise of, say, Schizoid. The rhythms, when in use at all which is about 50% of the duration of Exist, are loping, shuddery and/or taken to extremes; like they hit the start button on the drum machine every now and again, then fucked around with the results and let the detritus spew out. All this and some squealy little piggies warping into cyberspace, and it's a lurching, regurgitated sound and one which will have the discerning (i.e. spoon-fed in this case) dance floor fans rolling in agony and demanding the guts of the DJ. 

Other folks will demand the lights be turned out, the doors locked, and the volume turned to maximum in the best traditions of Harder Faster Louder. For peole who like their noise to have some structure, even if that consists of rapid-fire machine rolls and distressing children's wails among the sampled skiffy FX and odd orchestra stab. Exist murmurs loudly rather than rants, and what it's whispering among the minimalised (though occasionally hyper-speed nonetheless) digital clatter is lysergic, dark and sometimes overwhelming. Those rhythms do like to take odd turns and scrapes; fusillades rattle off into the open air, fall over, wash off shore on a raft of excessive reverb and float back into range, somehow refreshed and tarnished at the same time. The sense of vertigo can become immersive; ear-bending; chaotic, all at once and around again until the urge to tear out clumps of hair (perhaps other peoples'?) suggests itself, especially when enduring the 31-minute plus of "Noize". 

The imagery on the cover and implied in the music evokes 2001 and the Apocalypse; scorched earth policies have been applied in a clinical manner to the raw acoustic sample fodder, and then pissed on from a great height. What once was Techno and even the cheesiest of Pop musick (plus the odd bit of post-Muslimgauze Islamotronica on "Hooyee" or the vertiginous chords, Kung-Fu yelps and nauseously squelched drum fills of ""Jem") may never be found again in their samplers and drum machines, but Exist like to make the beats shudder and work for their fucking living... no wonder it sometimes seems to give up audibly on this CD in"

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