Musicians who make drum’n’bass, electronic pop’s avant-garde extreme, often incorporate the sounds of video games and children’s toys. Bogdan Raczynski mines everything from tin xylophones to windup noisemakers, plus a wide array of modern synthesizers, to construct his purposefully distracted music on Boku Mo Wakaran (Rephlex). Perhaps this vein of sampling is intended to provide familiar focal points amid the hallucinogenic goings-on. More likely, though, those sounds are important touchstones — the sonic memories that inform Raczynski’s work, most of which bounces around with the pace of an arcade game. The bass end hums like an ominous, circling death ray, while melodies (or their nearest equivalent) ricochet about at maddening speeds. There are moments of peace among the 26 tracks here, notably the elegiac closer, but Raczynski loses patience with patience fairly quickly.
Current Activities
• October 13, 2016: This day marks the start of the 250th weekly Disquiet Junto project. • November 16, 2016: I'll be sharing the mic at Adobe Books in San Francisco with my fellow 33 1/3 author Evie Nagy for an evening hosted, from 7pm to 10pm, by Marc Kate (facebook.com). • December 1, 2016: A likely speaking engagement. Details to come. • December 13, 2016: This day marks the 20th anniversary of Disquiet.com. • January 5, 2017: This day marks the 5th anniversary of the Disquiet Junto. • Ongoing: The Disquiet Junto series of weekly communal music projects explore constraints as a springboard for creativity and productivity. There is a new project each Thursday afternoon (California time), and it is due the following Monday at 11:59pm: disquiet.com/junto. • My book on Aphex Twin's landmark 1994 album, Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, published as part of the 33 1/3 series, an imprint of Bloomsbury, is now in its second printing. It can be purchased at amazon.com, among other places.