Just gone up with the new RA chart is a long overdue shout to the debut Container LP, released on Spectrum Spools earlier this year, released and in stores two months after it was recorded. Despite Kamikaze rinsing it on back-to-back shows I was in the majority of people that slept on this way too long, snagging the last copy from a London store months after it’s release. It recently made it on the Best of Bleep chart from Chairman Kato so all in all it’s safe to say that this is one of our favorite albums of the year.
LP has been called “depraved, obscene, nastiness”, “raw brutal techno” and “not to be listened to if in danger of homicide” – every single one of them is spot on. It’s an open book of straight ear-rape relentless from the word go yet so beautifully structured and raw in it’s instrumentation that you enjoy the violation.
Sex-metaphors aside you can feel it was done analogue, feel the elements working together in one session as the music is created ground up. I’m a sucker for a minimum filter on a classic kit or drum machine, and the brutal sounds combined with masterfully warped structure is just a match made in heaven. This isn’t abstract sounds knocking around your brain seeking understanding, more aggressive pounding that kicks the front of your skull in.
The press release from Spectrum Spools is pretty spot on.
Container is a recent moniker of Nashville, Tennessee resident Ren Schofield who’s been actively shifting about the U.S. playing shows and releasing cassettes on his mysterious I Just Live Here imprint for a long while now. Known primarily for his God Willing project, a disjointed, confusing, maze of crude oscillator, tape, and guitar, Ren has established himself as a staple in the east coast underground.
Here we have a new experiment in electronic beat oriented music. This is no standard fare, however. It glows with a vision all it’s own, completely isolated and separate making it difficult to place in the awkward world of the “genre”. The sounds are a thick stew congealing new ideas and naive experiments into something in the ballpark of the new super weird Wolfgang Voigt 12″s, abstract and minimal in nature with time stopping tendencies . Take those 12″s and send them thru the garbage can, tape loop, reel to reel experiments of Ake Hodells “220 Volt Buddha” or that weird track with lawnmower by Charles Amirkhanian on the first Slowscan volume and we might be getting closer.
This music, by being so unruly and defiant of any kind of trend, has created a fresh fusion we have not heard until now. “Application” introduces you to Container in the most suitable way. A confusing anti-rhythm accompanied by eerie unidentifiable tones before a collapse of metallic drum sounds washes you out into to the minimal motorik “Protrusion”. The flip takes off with intense feedback squeal and more light speed rhythm leading into “Overflow” the albums wildest, most textural piece. “Rattler” leaves the listener absolutely baffled and flipping the record over again to try to figure it all out as this record makes no sense to anybody but it’s creator.
The experimental nature of this album alone warrants it’s vinyl release, however, the fine detail and unique structures will have you waiting for the next Container 12″.
Container aka Ren Schofield holds his web-based home at I Just Live Here, which, from what I gather is not just a launchpad for Lupus The Dog but also a place where Ren sells cassette tapes – some of his own compiling and others he might just be picking up.
There also a link to dedicated Container information including upcoming releases and shows, and a handful of live videos that I’ve jacked below. Seriously, just stay on top of this man’s movements and grab everything you can that’s got his name to it.