The warping of materials is often necessary in reclaiming freedom against the objects that enclose and expand our bodies and creative lives into decorative containers both marvelous and disgraceful. The warp can be studious in its interests, perhaps in the manner Holly Herndon recently explored in Platform. Alternatively, the warp can be organically transformative, nearly bio-luminescent in the way Arca ignites identity politics into organically ripe sound design that seems to be growing, expanding, writhing in all directions.
Amnesia Scanner’s particular warp technique comes down to the splice — a technique that is visually represented in their early work through tattoos of strange, spindly forms that appear to be the strands of some unknown infectant: themes of mutation, their infatuation with the terabytes inside DNA, their reverse-osmosis into primordial, oceanic poison. Sonically, the tight, often rapidly consecutive warping of samples create harsh, almost impressionistic structures that can be visualized as individual materials interacting loosely to depict a ravenous mechanical whole — like tiny rusted bots scurrying, linking, rearranging themselves into into tools optimized for the user. “Baltic Rim” sketches out an image not dissimilar to the abstracted oil rig landform discovered in AS ANGELS RIG HOOK; the sounds evoke salty, acidic waves staining ice blocks yellow. The piece rises into “Confission,” a futurist headbanger that reformats the landscape into a more pliant structure, where laser-like percussion causes the landform to melt indistinguishably into it’s original, primal, mech-nucleic source.
The fused cuts were released in conjunction with a series of tour dates:
10.6. XOYO LONDON
11.6 BERGHAIN BERLIN
19.6 BEURSSCHOUWBURG BRUSSELS
20.6 HEK BASEL
26.6 PALISADES NYC
27.6 MOMA PS1 NYC
4.7 NEWMAN FESTIVAL DRUSKINANKAI
Catch them.
• Amnesia Scanner: http://www.amnesiascanner.net