#phaserboys

Last time I checked in with candomblé, it was for the release of LSW’s Life Style West, an album of hardware jams and shadow-pop vocals leaning towards the weirder fringes of krautrock, cyber noir, NDW, and Euro boogie. Most recently, the collective/label dropped 404’s Off Course…a journey through ambient futurisms, chill out psychedelics, and IDM beat designs...which I’ll cover in more detail sometime soon. But before getting to that, I’d like to discuss candomblé’s other record from 2019: Aki Aki’s Dishjockey. Released at the end of the summer, this 12” marks the first solo outing from Phaserboy and camdomblé main man Aki Vierboom and is presented as a two course meal, portions of which were prepared in conjunction with Rasputin, the other half of Phaserboys, and Kaschiel, who contributed a couple of great tracks to the first two candomblé 10”s as well as production work on Life Style West. Across four slabs of drug dance intoxication, Aki and his crew serve up some of their heaviest and most tripped out material yet…these esoteric worlds of profound physical power, wherein psychosonic acid lines slide through neon slime, fever dream mutations surround reversing vocalizations, and rave drum pressure waves pulse into the night. Elsewhere, low-slung hip-hop breaks bounce through clouds of bass music mesmerism, Goan trance electronics lead tribal body rituals, and ethnological dub riddims splatter amidst fourth world soundbaths…all until an epic finale of cyborg prog majesty and mystical desert exotica.

Aki Aki - Dishjockey (candomblé, 2019) Spectral space fx, reversing moans, and cracking claps begin “Müsli Boys,” before Aki drops a stoner zoner body beat, with kick drums stomping and pushing massive columns of air while double-time hats breath fire over swagger snare perfection. Fat bottomed acid lines execute sexual slides, feedback melodies smear into crystal computations, frogsong psychedelics flow into and out of the spectrum, and claps rocket through delirium echoe cascades until the basslines disperse, letting the drums morph into a slow motion stomp, with cymbals spraying golden glitter over electro-clap panoramas. Then, subsonic lasers wash out the drums as the JV 8000 bass juice slips and slides through puddles of galactic grease, with hi-hats ticking nervously amidst disturbing vocal abstractions. And later, we devolve into a stretch of alien breakbeat ambiance wherein cyborg demons chant unknowable spells. “Mailo, Urbanisation du Huan” floats in on industrial bass pulsations, with tom fills and ethnological hand drums clattering through cavernous spaces while starshine tracers intertwine with morse code. A dubbed out bassline washes the mix clean before Aki and chef garde manger Kaschiel drop into a deep drug breakbeat, wherein snares and toms rocket through abstracted echo prisms while tambourines keep time. Acid lines execute insectoid dances, triple-time cymbal rolls bringing a mutant hip-hop touch, and sub-bass textures evoke primate mating calls while electro-marbles roll across the mind. Later, the track devolves into cosmic slop, with phaser orchestrations blowing a cool breeze before transmuting into white light magnificence…a blinding flash that leaves behind a tribal zone out…a world of tubular bass fluids scatting vocal rave magic while drums morph between unsettled patterns and paranoid riddims. Cyborg sequences flow in line with the freakbass wobble as snare and hat patterns cut up the air and eventually, it all gives way to an outro of pounding drum ritualism breaking down in real time amidst oceanic birdsong.

Chaotic synthesis filters amidst bubbling percussion panoramas, tropical idiophonics, and alien loon song…all while a beat slowly climbs through layers of toxic smoke. This is “Opti-Mystik Dub”…a deep dive into future-dub shadowrealm exotica, with throbbing synthbass hypno-riffs snaking through the mix and a background suffused by laser generated monkey calls and whooshing winds of static. Snares blast through puddles of white light, double-time and triple-time hats cycle through leaned out patterns, and virtual hand drum cascades pop across the spectrum while elsewhere, Aki and sous-chef Rasputin melt the mix down into time-shifting free jazz psychedelia. As we chug back into the stoner riddim ceremonial, distorted acid lines squelch over the mix…their sounds evoking the unknowable chants of a frog-spirit mystic. And during a spectacular climax, trance sequences descend from a neon sky…as if Goan energy beams are bathing some secret rainforest ritual. “Kale Selector” opens with angel choirs and kosmische organs pushing the mind towards ecstasy. Cymbals zoom through echo displacements, metallic fluids sequence across the stereo field, and rolling hand percussions sit above bouncing acid bass madness until the starscape energies recede, being replaced by something approximating a bluesy psych beat, with tom fills flailing like a primal machine variant of Michael Shrieve. Then, the rhythms fall apart, leaving behind a world of slip-sliding acid mesmerism, with everything building towards a magnificent release. And indeed, we eventually awaken in a world of prog rock mesmerism, with glowing wavefronts immersing the spirit in esoteric dream atmospheres and Arbabian melodies quivering into orgasm while tribes of exo-planetary forest spirits lock into a shamanic funk stomp. And after a brief detour into body jacking 90s rave magic, Aki subverts expectations by delivering a slow burn fade, teasing out one last magisterial prog climb before giving over to droning organs and rainbow bubble clouds.

Aki Vierboom ve Gregor Darman’ın oluşturduğu Phaserboys kendi isimlerini taşıyan ilk kısa çalarlarını Aiwo Records etiketi ile yayınladı. Bahar ve Yaz 2017’de sample kullanılmadan kaydedilen albümü Juno üzerinden dinleyebilir ve kısa çalarda bulunan Including No Information şarkısını aşağıdan dinleyebilirsiniz. Phaserboys - Phaserboys