@@@ Mariel Roberts: Armament (N/A, 2021) I got to this solo cello, pedal electronic music via the weekly gig announcement from Roulette in Brooklyn. She’s referred to a relentless explorer and I’m on the first of two pre-release tracks and it’s not quite. It’s a core of thick cello bowing with some drones and light industrial mechanical sauce. Now I’m nothing if not an honest reviewer and the second piece does get more into integrating the cello with the additional sounds and the second piece here sounds a bit like something from Lord of the Rings where the cello sounds like it’s fed into a cranked distortion pedal and they combine to make this low to mid frequency blasting sound from Hell. What’s interesting is that the sounds are separate and combined and it’s an effective use of the pedals.
@@@ Anuel AA & @Ozuna: Los Dioses (Real Hasta La Muerte, 2021) Some all Spanish gangsta and loverboy aspiring hip hop with plenty of purring and a ton of voices. Very tight, twerking bass and some nice sounds outside of the vocal arrangement. I like the energy of the dual MCs, I’m happy I don’t know Spanish and I think there’s entirely too much purring/gun shot posturing. There’s a chopped/gated/rhythmic effect on the synth that helps to drive the track in an interesting manner so overall it’s a mixed bag — solid MC energy, nice synth fx, solid beats, too much purring.
Deep In the Music 