Amid a blurring of all forms, in a plagued Winter of worry, Rob Corless delivers his landmark 50th album. As with the previous 49 – the crying of lot 49 – he conceives of his schizophrenic productions not as passive facilitators but as active exhibitions.
This bristling, searching electronic music is instantly scene-setting. This isn’t the electronica of sad robot voices. His work isn’t a button-click away. His world is a crafted DIY struggle that refuses to settle or cohere. You can hear the toil.
What distinguishes this album is its hazy, buffed-down quality, as if the music were a bootleg of itself, diminished in power and clarity after being traded back and forth over time. He destroys the narrative of pop music but keeps the feeling. Something superb and fabulous is going on. You’re hearing machines at home through the walls of your bedroom and they’re alive; as in, actually alive.
I know of nobody else like him. His mind is tuned to a different frequency.
Austin Collings is a writer, filmmaker and creative director of The White Hotel.
His latest book is GOD’S FOX: https://www.pariahpress.com/product-page/gods-fox