What what, shout out to that freshest of fresh Giant Claw jam, and additional shout out, if you please, to the upcoming Giant Claw full-length called Dark Web, stuffed to its brim with all sorts of even fresher Giant Claw jams. Disclosure, of course: Giant Claw’s Keith Rankin used to be an editor up in these parts. Additional disclosure: I just ate two cookies when I should’ve only eaten one.
With that out of the way, a quick rundown of the ways in which the game has been killed dead by one Mr. Keith Rankin: Orange Milk, the super-excellent label run by Mr. Rankin in partnership with one Seth Graham, which has shot into upper atmosphere a number of personal favorites of mine this beautiful 2014, including Scammers’ American Winter and EQ Why’s Chitokyo Mixtape (Rankin also makes the thoroughly sick artwork for most of the Orange Milk releases). Then, of course, there is the musical angle of the Graham/Rankin connection via Cream Juice, whose headphone-busting Man Feelings our beloved Birkut both did and did not review last year. And, as the final piece in my abbreviated list, there is Keith Rankin’s solo work as Giant Claw, evinced on releases like last year’s Impossible Chew on Field Hymns. Giant Claw, of course, brings us right back around to where I started this whole post, and as such seems as good a place as any to break paragraphs.
Giant Claw’s newest LP, and Rankin’s first release of 2014, is entitled Dark Web and will be out September 30 via Noumenal Loom. The album’s art is a collaboration between Rankin and the artist Ellen Thomas. The album is a tightly edited MIDI and sample monster, inspired by Rankin’s “late-night hours spent digging through the internet’s infinite crates.” “DARK WEB 002,” which was deftly debuted by FACT, is an off-kilter amalgam of smashed and wooshing beats, with sample stabs, clangy synth patches, and, yeah, a few trap-hats thrown in there for good measure. It’s embedded below. You can also check out “DARK WEB 001” via C Monster’s Chocolate Grinder write-up of the track from last year.
DARK WEB tracklist:
01. DARK WEB 001
02. DARK WEB 002
03. DARK WEB 003
04. DARK WEB 004
05. DARK WEB 005
06. DARK WEB 006
07. DARK WEB 007
08. DARK WEB 008
• Giant Claw: https://giantclaw.bandcamp.com
• Noumenal Loom: http://noumenalloom.com
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