#wa?ste

Fluid Label Focus on QUANTUM NATIVES 3

Wa?ste: Living Demons (2019)

Reviewed format: PROMO MP3 download as kindly provided by QUANTUM NATIVES

Welcome to the third review I’m doing of a new release on the QUANTUM NATIVES label. This short but sweet EP length release by Australian artist Wa?ste titled Living Demons was sent to me as a PROMO MP3 download shortly before its release on March 27 of this year (2019) by Chris from QUANTUM NATIVES. And today I’m finally getting to reviewing this release. So, where does the label takes us this time on this, at time of writing most recent release? Well, it takes us to a surprisingly recognisable but also surreal manipulated sonic environment. The visual artwork, description in the email and texts included all hint to a human being as a kind of computer of which the “mind” is comparable to memory. Comparing impressions, situations and occurrences we all have in daily life to the building up of multiple tasks / processes into the RAM of a computer. The idea is of course quite abstract and open to multiple interpretations which are especially invited by the (in my opinion) quite “out there texts” and descriptions that accompany the music the so far 2 released videos that accompany two of the 4 tracks on Living Demons as well as the various artwork files included in the download folder you get when you download this release. With all these materials combined the release feels a lot like a really calming kind of sonic environment featuring catchy melodies but which is also filled with field recording details, sudden sound manipulations and some quirky distortion effects, like being lost in thoughts at a café, music is playing and the sounds from the people and traffic outside the café window are all suddenly mixing with the music into a pleasant lucid dream. Before I’ll move to the review of the music and how the artwork is connected to it, I’ll mention the contents of the download (these are most likely identical to the release you can download yourself). Besides an icon file of the release (for the map where the releases are located on the QUANTUM NATIVES website) you will find the 4 tracks of Living Demons in 320kbps/44.1kHz MP3 files, a text file containing the text (in multiple languages) describing the music, an art folder featuring 8 different artwork files in various formats, outside the folder there’s the release cover in good 2448x2448p resolution, a small version of the cover and a scanned PDF file containing a photo book.

As I mentioned, moving into the sonic environment of Living Demons is a really smooth 14 minute journey of the impressions of daily life contained within gorgeous layered pieces of music. The music Wa?ste created on this release mixes manipulated Pop samples, Deconstructed Club, Glitch and Noise elements into fluid soundgrooves and Noisescapes that feel like a depiction of the spring season filtered through our impression filled lives. First track ｆ.４ℹ︎.t.h showcases this really well. The piece revolves a poppy melodic fragment that’s glitched up, stuttered and granularized forming a hypnotic looping base of the music in which the hopeful female textless vocal samples hover around the sonic environment both as motif and scattered bits of sound that are also combined with the ever changing grooves of the piece. These grooves consist of a mixture of R&B styled electronic drums which are distorted and effected in various points within the track and chopped Amen breaks creating abstract blocks of rhythm that are often stuttering and disintegrating into often metallic sharp bursts of sound. These glitchy metallic resonant percussive elements form a great juxtaposition of the fragmented but still consistently deep ambiences created by the vocal Pop melody samples as well as additional reverberated female vocal samples that create dense side-chained atmospheric pads. Field recordings of a crowded street are blended in to create references to the impressions of daily life that float through our mind through this music, but sonic details within the percussion like the various gun sound effects also add a curious Industrial harshness to the soundscape of the piece and the heartbeat sound at the end of the piece is a great compositional choice that keeps the music grounded in the organic ambience of human life. All in all a great first track that blends musical and concrete sound to conjure up the images of life filtered through a lucid dreaming mind as well abstract outbursts of the mind’s imagination. The following piece stealing is darker, but not in a doomed horror kind of manner, this darkness is more like the tension of a Thriller. The piece is very Industrial focused, filled with various percussive metallic sounds, most likely taken from field recordings of construction works, fences clanging and related resonant sounds caused by the actions of people in the city. The melodies are formed from various sampled sounds that are rich in overtones and do have a bit of an 80s Gothic feeling to them in a way, which is helped by the at times “triggered” sounding element in the way the samples cut off when the notes of the melodies are played. stealing feels a lot like a cross between an 80s Gothic influenced Industrial piece and contemporary sample manipulation and granular techniques. It’s like an eerie story told in a dark shadowy church whilst strange images of a city in construction flash before your eyes, the bassy kicks feeling like sudden punches of energy from a nearby underground club. The burst of granular Noise in the second half of the piece feels like a strange wave of corrupted imagery passing you. Anything is possible in this mysterious environment you’re in, but you are always reminded of the daily city life you’re living in as well, grounded to the flow of a calm day as it unfolds, minute by minute. The track that follows afterwards, ecstatic passage is a piece I could describe as sounding a bit like a beatless Witch House track. Indeed, that style might sound like being unrelated to this music, but in fact the heavy distortion, metallic Industrial percussion mixed with deep synth ambiences and angel like female vocals are also elements featured in that genre. Connected to the concept of a blend of impression from city life hitting our minds while sitting in a cafe at leisure, I could describe it as a joyful outburst of emotional energy blended with the loud traffic noise and harsh sounds that can occur in midst of a traffic jam. Like the dark muck of asphalt trying to cover a painting of a sunshine filled landscape but never succeeding as the sunshine keeps evaporating the dark texture of the asphalt. Final track xan 1 continues this element of (harsh) Noise trying to reduce that tranquil peaceful feeling of a picnic in the park as could be depicted by the bright warm guitar / choir samples melody. Screechy masses of needle scratching like Noise burst out at many points in the track, and at other points Pioneer turntable rewinding sounds come in, as if an epic beat is about to be dropped. It’s quite an absurd, maybe even funny juxtaposition between the folky melody and out of the blue dadaist Noise burst and DJ mess-ups. I also love the very high pitched beeps within the Noise bursts and how the juxtaposition of Noise and melody creates a very nice two-layer depth in the piece, allowing you to be able to hear the Folk melody “in between the Noise”, even if you’d expect it to mask the melody. A great closing track from this excellent EP by Wa?ste.

All in all, Living Demons is a very vibrant, richly detailed and adventurous mind trip blending thoughts of the intense city life with imaginative abstractions, varied sonic imagery and inviting melodies that also freely crosses into Industrial and Noise territory along the way. The accompanying artwork by Wa?ste expresses this multi-layered aspect of the EP rather well, showcasing pictures of people in the city, details of shop signs, hand drawn and painted abstract imagery and hand-writing, blending the musical aspects with the visual domain and showing us captures of city life as well as the abstraction contained within the music through graphic glitches and creative layering of text and imagery. The two videos released for Living Demons so far, for ecstatic passage and xan 1, show this imagery in motion, going with the music, showing moving images from people on the streets of the city which in the video of ecstatic passage are combined with some sweet illustrations by @momcore666 layered over the imagery. An excellent release definitely and highly recommended for fans of Plunderphonics, Glitch, but also Noise and Industrial styled music and anyone looking for a great sonic adventure to enjoy and celebrate the spring season with. Go check this out now.

The MP3 download on QUANTUM NATIVES is available here: http://www.mediafire.com/file/vtcbi599l24u9rh/WaSte+-+Living+Demons+%28QNR025%29.zip?fbclid=IwAR2ARieqZVP0fMHJjTfeZP1uq7NPz75VMK_CjE8QhA1rpb4-wFo-sdsDdXQ

Kimchi Princi - Trippin' feat. Dev (prod. WA?STE)