Crawdaddy! The Magazine of Rock

Black Dice
Load Blown
(Paw Tracks, 2007)

I initially tried to listen to the new Black Dice album on my computer speakers at work, and found it utterly impossible to pull out its bottomless nuances from behind the commotion of emails, conversations, writing, editing, and other loud and distracting duties that take place at the Crawdaddy! office. I couldn’t wrap my ears around the whole thing for more than halfway through the album before some other audible variable became more pressing. And then, slow to the draw, I realized I needed to forego listening through speakers and go straight for the earphones. Voila! I was engaged. I was undisturbed. And in fact, band member Eric Copeland told Death Rock Star that the best place to listen to their records would be on a walk, or in a room high up anywhere with a huge sound system and no interruptions.

The Black Dice compose minimalist noise rock through repetition and distortion of simple but dimensional sounds that they then build and layer upon. Out of Brooklyn, New York, they are pushing the envelope of sonic exploration with this weirdly progressive, spaced out music. Their fourth release, but their first on Paw Tracks, titled Load Blown is a kooky soundtrack of experimental electronic rock. For those not familiar with the music of the Black Dice, many conventional variables like lyrics are forsaken for challenging soundscape compositions. The sound is mutated but stripped down. They met at the Rhode Island School of Design. Art students. Not surprising.

People undoubtedly feel alienated by the Black Dice, but there is substance to be drawn from the building repetition of their inventive, almost industrial sounds. The opening track, “Kokomo”, is a subtly layered, futuristic and minimalist piece of music. “Roll Up” follows and kicks in with a feedback-drenched shake and hum that is hypnotic in its approach. What I once found far beyond my ability to focus on, with headphones I am fixated on the dripping sounds. Though the song begins to evade me as it embarks on a crunching, jarring buildup, at two and a half minutes simple notes traipse in and build around the fringes of a melody, and I’m into it. But then, within the same song, it breaks into a scorching hissing sound, like you must imagine a fly hears when it slams into a window. Uh, yeah. Metaphor is the best way to wrap description around this music.

“Bottom Feeder” is a dense, otherworldly labyrinth of driving sounds, and “Scavenger” oozes with faint background voices, all amid a shuffling, colliding conglomeration of noise. At times, it doesn’t really head anywhere, other than concoct and mix more and more sonic variables until it swings back around to build on a stripped down center, but you sure don’t listen to Black Dice unless you’re ready to be drawn into an audible adventure. “Toka Toka” kicks in early with a pulsating and engrossing backbone, and is to me, the most accessible of all the tracks on this record, as it churns along and is almost, dare I say, danceable? Maybe in a robotic sort of way, but it has a driving backbeat that keeps this one moving at an easy full-throttle.

And so it goes, cranking along. Shuffling sounds, buzzing reverb, manufactured, mixed up, clean tapestries of sound. While it can be a mildly grating listen for the uninitiated, there is a lot to uncover here, and remember, if you get discouraged, stick it on your iPod and talk a walk to get the most out of it. Unless of course, you can catch ‘em live. That’ll undoubtedly be a real trip.

Watch: “Kokomo” [at youtube.com]