Can you heart stand two posts today? I thought I had posted on Friday about the new Jan Linton single, and I made an edit to the live post on my personal device’s Jetpack app and have apparently discovered that there’s no roundtrip editing from desktop to mobile and back. The act of changing a word [a rare example of editing at PPM!] on my phone after publication effectively de-published my posting and it reverted back to draft mode! Even after hitting the “update” button. Please accept my humble apologies and I will endeavor not to fall into that trap again! In the interim, here’s what only seems like the second posting for today!

THE METAMORPH – SKYLAB EP

Gloryoski! It was only four months ago that The Metamorph offered up his album, “The Man On The 99th Floor,” for our listening pleasure, and he’s already moved on with the new EP “Skylab.” It was released last Friday, September 22nd as I struggle to keep up with things following my recent trip to Ohio. The four track EP is a DL of your choice on Bandcamp and was also [very briefly] manifested in the physical format of a 3″ business-card CD which we don’t actually have samples of in the Record Cell! Unsurprisingly, the limited edition sold out in record time so we can only view the photo above and imagine it, but the program is another chameleonic turn from the analog synths of Gavin Brick.

The beatbox prominence of “One Split Second” immediately trumpeted the newfound rhythmic prominence of this new group. While I can still hear Vangelis-inspired synth patches with long delay zooming overhead through the songscape, the rhythm programming kept things more urgent than cinematic. Suggesting a tumultuous, future-urban landscape to contain the song; it’s title taken from the sound bite of “let’s freeze one split second in time” employed throughout.

Abrupt rhythm which felt like a slap in the face was immediately prominent from the first second of “Flesh + Steel.” It was built upon a harsh slab of white noise that was an advance from the one used on “The Frozen Façade [For I.M. Pei]” as heard on the last release. I absolutely love synth patch rhythm and I often wonder why it isn’t used more frequently for its bracing sonic quality. High-hat programming and swooping synths carved out the low and high frequency turn in the song while the midrange was diminished for heightened contrast of textures. Tantalizing interjections of curdled synth bass as used on Cab Volt’s “Just Fascination” only served to heighten my ardor for this song.

“The Venusians” opted for another new vista in rhythm programming as what sounded like modular synth loops redolent of Gershon Kingsley’s immortal synth-classic “Popcorn” while more shards of white noise percussive force among the minor key synths yowling like cats in heat formed the disquieting core of the song. Degenerated voice sound bites appeared once more to imposing suggestive effect; evocative of an Outer Limits episode rendered in music.

More hard beats were at the core of “We Are Tonytronic,” which featured the title rendered in distant vocoders as the beatbox clicked its insect-rhythms through the avant-Funk of the song. I appreciated the incongruous, harp-like synth patches of the brief two minute track as it consistently failed to gel into complacency before exiting the stage.

The DL is £4.00 on Bandcamp in your pick of their lossy to lossless formats. I have to mention the now-long-gone physical format of the EP as burned onto business-card shaped CD-3 fitted into a snug plastic clamshell case with info-card and hand-painted transparency artwork. All wrapped up with an identifying obi.

Due to the data holding limitations of the business card CD-R format, only MP3 files of the songs could fit on there. So this was a CD-ROM [not a music CD] on a shaped disc format that required a tray loading computer playback. But that didn’t stop these from flying out of The Metamorph’s Bandcamp store. Not for a second. I mention this since The Metamorph’s physical bespoke formats are really the bees-knees and one might subscribe to his Bandcamp page so as not to miss out on these digital gems in the future. So D.J. hit that button.

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