Eric Copeland – Alien in a Garbage Dump
Remember the time you dropped acid and imprisoned yourself in a circle of VHF televisions, all of which were tuned to Sesame Street reruns and late-night programming? Eric Copeland does.
In this follow-up to 2007’s Hermaphrodite, Copeland captures the spirit of always-smiling commercial jingles and forcibly mingles it with the noise of his better-known noise band, Black Dice. Repo, which the group released earlier this year, is similar to Alien in its perverted hip-hop leanings, but Copeland’s solo work is more distinct and ultimately more affecting.
“How much pleasure can I wring from unpleasant noise?” he must have asked himself. There are playful four-on-the-floor bass hits, voices delayed into a formless goop, and a waltzing guitar solo. That’s just the title track. “Reptilian Space Beings, Shapeshifting Bloodsucking Vampires” sounds like the intro to the great lost Beastie Boys jam. “Al Anon” lumbers like a retarded ape before flinging itself into space.
But the album is most exciting when Copeland allows his loops to wander down unexpected rabbit holes. Things get groovy (is that J Dilla? No, it’s “Auto Dimmer”), tribal (“Osni”) and a little hedonistic (the excellent “Wolfman”). It’s all here, and it’s more whole than anyone expected.
For an artist whose past work dwells in incoherence, Copeland’s artistic vision certainly has matured. Though Alien is actually the sum of two EP’s, one of which hit stores last year, the record is surprisingly cohesive. Snippets of vocal delivery (“Anyone else smoke the marijuana?” in the opening track, for instance) are extracted and then abused: sped up, backmasked, stripped of meaning. In this way, Alien is a study of the way in which repetition is mutating, debasing. Experimental indeed.
Alien is so good because its sonic tinkering is its most arresting feature. In a word, Copeland is no longer afraid to be liked. His best work, and one of the most exciting releases of the year.
Eric Copeland – Reptilian Space Beings, Shapeshifting Bloodsucking Vampires
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