Loud, tasteless, and confoundingly enjoyable, 2k16 Cyber Elite fuses frenetic chiptune riffage to the contents of a scene kid’s iPod Nano circa 2008, birthing an evil entity that saps its dark energy from the discount t-shirt rack at your local Spencer’s.
If that isn’t a Noisey thinkpiece in the making, I’m not sure what is.
Curated by cybergrind netlabel Kitty On Fire Records, the 13-track compilation runs the gamut of “extreme” music genres while testing the outer limits of its listener’s capacity for cringe-tolerance. At its best, 2k16 Cyber Elite channels the skittering technothrash of Oneohtrix Point Never’s lore-swathed side project Kaoss Edge: (see They Ate Isengard’s “Bowery” and Corvid Canine’s mind-melting marriage of black metal and IDM, “When Gardens are Crushed, Wrath is Sown”.)
Even in its less revelatory moments, the compilation still proves impressive/hilarious. ZOMBIESHARK’s “404” is the record’s choicest effort, the 16-bit equivalent of a Deafheaven interlude leading into a tempest of flickering square-wave melodies and growled vocals.
Nothing could express my sentiment towards Cyber Elite as effectively as the artist’s statement stowing away in the Soundcloud playlist’s description:
Is this trash? electronic entities from a higher dimension transmute themselves into digital data pumping straight into your speakers.
More about: Kitty On Fire Records
