Dementio13/Various – “VTOL” album review

Dementio13 (Paul Foster) has now built up a reputation for releasing some truly innovative album projects that encompass the qualities of Krautrock, ambient electronica and pop culture, and pieces them together to create some unnervingly sophisticated music. “VTOL” on first hearing is, thankfully, no exception. This time, however, a number of collaborators have been drafted in to provide further assets to the release. “Creased” which opens the album, and “A Shallow Grave”, are slightly reminiscent of chip tune, or 8-bit music, and harks back to a day when computer games generated music was far simpler and less refined. The chip tune feel carries on into “Finish Line” which is the first of three collaborations with Juanita Alvarez as Nita Disaster. Cold, unadulterated lines of dialogue combine to build up a futuristic urban landscape, whilst the instrumentation augments the abrasive atmosphere. “Pollution”, also featuring Nita Disaster, creates a similar sense of anxiety but somehow manages to cloak it in approachable swathes of electronic beats, whilst “These Days” has a futuristic jazz undercurrent which matures into music more delicate and affable.

 Douglas Deep (Steve Kelly) lends “Stelian” a no less desolate edge whilst incorporating frantic chip tune beats and demented vocal samples to create an uneasy amalgamation of sounds. “Genes” featuring James Reichelt as Alone and Dementio13 has a twisted “Aphex Twin” feel to it which gradually builds up the momentum and lavishness over its’ six minutes into something quite majestic. The album is not without its tongue in its own cheek in places however as can be seen on “Alcohol”, a collaboration with Snippet (Johnno Casson), and which features delightfully memorable electronic lines surrounding morsels of booze related lyrics and vocal samples. Pixieguts (Marie Craven) collaborates on “Rodeo Days” which progressively builds in intensity through skittish electronica and intimate vocal narrative. Here we have that sense of anxiety and melancholy that is becoming a feature throughout “VTOL”, and which gives is an almost ultramodern fascination. This futuristic ambience is further evidenced in “Self Doubting Thomas” featuring Ian Thistlethwaite. Deadpan vocals over anxious beats create a tension which looks to the future in a way that is common in the twenty first century, not as a utopia and something to be proud of, but as a dystopia and something to be distrustful of.
“Theme Four” seems perfectly placed near the end of the album as the subtle, elusive ukelele bass, fretless bass and guitar lines of Alun Vaughan weave through hopeful beats and lead carefully into the ominous but oddly optimistic “Bondage Bus”. It is a dramatic ending to an album that is peppered with a disparate number of collaborations, which, through thoughtful production and track listing, form a high-tech narrative, which can almost, to these ears, be thought of as urban film music for the twenty second century. 

Dementio13 Wordpress

Dementio13 – Imperial Decimal review

With a musical name that sound suspiciously like a 1963 horror film by a young Francis Ford Coppola, Cardiff based Dementio13 has a further release to add to the collection of sound manipulation based compositions. “Imperial Decimal” utilises the influences heard on previous works and adds into the mix a subtle sense of the hauntalogical.  The opening “Application of Number” in particular gives the listener the slightly disconcerting yet secure sense of their own past, and of memories not quite yet forgotten, but not quite fully remembered. A track such as “Taupe” has qualities that are consoling yet sinister, and conjure up pastoral horror film imagery.   The same can be said for “Known in Hell” which utilises instrumentation and sound qualities that bring to mind half remembered melancholies. There is a sinister, driving element to “Known in Hell” which feeds into a love of repetition based music that is inherent in us all. “Nobutaku”, “The Mains” and “Nought Point Seven” are tender swirling accumulations of electronics and fog, which continue the theme of “unsettling”, whilst “Jester” is a bright and idiosyncratic piece of sound management set to broken beats, producing the rarely heard genre of mutant dance floor music. Fractured passages of incomprehensible speech punctuate “Know Your Place” which otherwise melts along on swathes of keyboard and is somehow reminiscent of an imagined love theme from some late 1960’s or early 1970’s science fiction drama. Subliminal delirious speech and discordant passages feature heavily on “Filed Away” before the hallucination is broken with unyielding percussion.

A track such as “The Data People” features elements and phrases that bring to mind electronic music in the UK in the 1970’s and 1980’s, but not in the sense that these pieces are mere reproductions of that style but more in the sense that they form a tribute to the composers who were producing music at that time with limited amount of resource. “Our Policy on Swearing” begins absurdly with an instructional guide to swear words that are “appropriate” in the workplace; the comedy soon descends into trepidation however, as the words become more unacceptable, and the music that underlies the narrative more disharmonious. Far more than simply a novelty addition as a coda to the main album, “Our Policy on Swearing” is characteristic of how Dementio13 can manipulate mood and outlook within a single piece. “Imperial Decimal” is yet another absorbing collection of compositions and sound sculptures which suggest both the interests and influences of Dementio13.  And one which may, hopefully, encourage the casual listener to follow the lead.

Dementio13 Bandcamp page... 

Dementio13 - “Last Test” review

Based in Cardiff, Paul, producing this release as Dementio13, cites influences as disparate as Aphex Twin, Neu!, Delia Derbyshire, Arthur Baker and The BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Each one of these voices however can be heard throughout his latest release “Last Test”. The opening groove of “A Beat Called Don” will have any Krautrock devotee who has even a passing acquaintance with Neu!, salivating with joy, whilst “Pemberton Colliery”, through a series of tones and electronic textures, takes the listener on a journey through the history of electronic music over the past fifty years. Delicate keyboard textures and drones inform “Pen Y Fan” evoking not only the composer’s interpretation of that specific location but the spirit of ambient music in general. Eight minutes of “Really Far Away” are swept along with the momentum of mesmerising pulses and dark, yet not unfriendly, washes of sound. Again the characteristic “Apache Beat” or “motorik” groove underpins the ride and carries the willing participant across a vista of sound including abrasive electronic shards and a seemingly wordless female voice drifting soulfully through the mix.

Almost dreamlike yet delerious vocals bubbling gently underneath the music are a distinguishing feature of “Cycle Energy”, whilst “This Is My Mid Life Crisis and You’re listening To It” is playfully simple, yet deeply evocative of a life once led. “Zenit” may please the listener, who remembers and appreciates the 8-bit technology reminiscent of 1970/1980’s computer game music. The influence of characters such as Aphex Twin may be felt on pieces such as “Fruitfly”, “Bonnie Dog” and “Last Test” which oscillate wildly between abrasive electronic noise and solid driving rhythm with confidence, whilst aficionados of The BBC Workshop and John Baker may recognise the composers acknowledgment to those artists and the electronic composers of the 1980’s possibly some of the early work by The Human League. Some of the passages here would not appear out of place as incidental or soundtrack music to a dystopian vision of the future. There are moments when one almost feels they are listening to the sound of a fax machine or out of date modem being manipulated into the productions. The geometric cover art to this release goes some way to reinforce this aesthetic.

“Last Test” closes with “Version 3” which in some ways blends all of the previous influences into one cohesive piece whilst at the same time displaying an almost “hauntological” admiration for music of an innocent time gone by. The contrasting music that collectively makes up this latest release from Dementio13 is in no way fractured, indeed “Last Test” is a cohesive work that acknowledges the music that has gone before, and uses that history to create something at once respectful and inspirational. 

Dementio13 online