Customer Reviews

Broken Ear Record

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This was my first Black Dice album, and I, like most people when they first hear Black Dice, had this reaction: "What the f**k is this s**t?"

I was a little shocked by just how far this band was from making anything remotly close to "music," yet...you can snap your fingers and dance to this album! As weird and arty and crazy as it sounds, there are some discernable melodies and hooks in with the madness.

Standout tracks would have to be the creaking groovy "Snarly Yow" and "Smiling Off", which has some really messsed-up guitar and a great drum groove. This is also one of the most psychedelic albums I've heard in a while. It's music that makes you feel stoned without getting stoned. That's a great feat, in my opinion.

So, if you enjoy electronic music without all that Chemical-brothers "one more time" [..], this is for you.

Wow.
Black Dice is back after the disappointing (yet still decent) Creature Comforts. Back are the beats, not played by drums but created mostly from the result of tons of effects piling on top of each other. Black Dice continue to reinvent themselves with every release, from dissecting hardcore to it's basic elements on early albums, to the pentultimate masterpiece that is Beaches and Canyons, to Broken Ear Record. This is Dance Music for noise heads.
Easily the best record of the year so far.

Does anyone else think that the synthasizer in the Nintendo DS game Nintendogs was used in makng the final song, Motorcycle? some of the sounds seem very similar.

By the way, this album requires more thought than i can muster at 5AM in the evening to accurately review, but i think it is outstanding.

Astralwerks is one of the record labels that proves that not every song needs to be made for radios' sake. There are just some music you can just make for yourself and yourself only or for those looking for something different. The basis of dong that is not only to have fun, but to make sure the music pleases you first. Please you before it will please themselves. Yet, it is music like Black Dice's that is going to take a few moments to fly.

Black Dice is proof that music was made to have fun with but in a serious manner, and that dance and electronica do not have to go together. It takes real guts to make sure people realze your art instead of just letting them listen to stuff on the radio. Black Dice's music is made of noice to help create a certain affect of music without using real instruments. With Beaches and Canyons, they created more of a Psychedelic view of music. With, Creature Comforts, they come one step closer to creating dance rock for the mind and the ears. Now they have signed to astralwerks, to pursue more of a groove to their music, like any other song at astralwerks using Electronica. It may go over or under 4 minutes, leaving you to have to experience the indie-major debut on your own. Now the best thing about this album is the fact that they are trying to work their sound into a genre or a passable sound, all while still sounding like Black Dice. The worst of it is that they are trying to work their sound into a genre or a passable sound, all while sounding like Black Dice...all while harnessing quite a mediocre introduction. Now that Black Dice's label, DFA Records, is connecting with astralwerks, Black Dice has to prove themselves through their music. (And when CDs need more than one listen of the album to sink in and enjoy, you are kind of in a pickle.)

Kicking off the proclaimed noisy record is their piece "Snarly Yow". Did we mention the thing is approximately 8 minutes of experimental mayhem in the making? Just like any other song, none of them have real melodies. In about 2:41, their may be a broken melody there for those who are being looking for a point where you call even call this music or art. The next song, "Smiling Off" fits more into the groove moniker than any other song we can expect. "Smiling Off" has a transitional groove to the brain to pursue. "Heavy Manners", although sounding folk influenced, is considered the slowest of the tracks. The thing is it is mumbling and a distorted guitar playing all through the song. Not necessarily, a bad thing, but if you like any of that, then you can cope. "ABA" is an interlude in which you will enjoy. It is just a slow song with distorton of sound. Although the most accesble, it sounds a bit like what Squarepusher could have created. Though, sometimes you wish the interlude was a bit longer. "Street Dude" has myriad clicking noises to mix with distortion of the song. But that is not just that, it starts in the middle with some glorious guitar playing that you wouldn't really have expected from this group.

The album kicks off with a song that sonds a little more left together than any other song on the album: "Motorcycle". It has more of an acoustic groovy feel to the song all while enjoying the fact the music is free to roam and out of our hands. At about 5:01, they come in with a drum pattern to help separate a few parts of the songs, and create a whole new masterpiece where an album settles into a world where music are forced into cliques.

If you want to hear creavite freedom, hear music, or just want to listen to something without paying too much attentiopn, then Black Dice's albums are what you have been looking for. Simply, if you don't like Broken Ear Record, you don't like Black Dice, therefore you don't like music or art, and that's pretty much the rule. The trick about about this album is that they all have the best and the worst songs on the album. So either way, everyone gets a kick. And it is prompting you to just enjoy it for the experience alone. Be in it for the fashion, if it looks good on you. To tell you the truth, in music, I'm pretty sure Black Dice would not really care much either way.
Rating: 6.75/10