Boxcutter

• Share
  • Email
  • Digg
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Buzz up!
  • Del.icio.us
  • Reddit
  • Newsvine
  • StumbleUpon
  • Google
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Feeds
  • PopMatters
  • Listen

 Official Site

 Amazon

 Lala

“00000010101010000000000
00101000001010000000100
10001000100010010110010
10101010101010100100100
00000000000000000000000
00000000000011000000000
00000000001101000000000
00000000001101000000000
00000000010101000000000
00000000011111000000000
00000000000000000000000
11000011100011000011000
10000000000000110010000
11010001100011000011010
11111011111011111011111
00000000000000000000000
00010000000000000000010
00000000000000000000000
00001000000000000000001
11111000000000000011111
00000000000000000000000
11000011000011100011000
10000000100000000010000
11010000110001110011010
11111011111011111011111
00000000000000000000000
00010000001100000000010
00000000001100000000000
00001000001100000000001
11111000001100000011111
00000000001100000000000
00100000000100000000100
00010000001100000001000
00001100001100000010000
00000011000100001100000
00000000001100110000000
00000011000100001100000
00001100001100000010000
00010000001000000001000
00100000001100000000100
01000000001100000000100
01000000000100000001000
00100000001000000010000
00010000000000001100000
00001100000000110000000
00100011101011000000000
00100000001000000000000
00100000111110000000000
00100001011101001011011
00000010011100100111111
10111000011100000110111
00000000010100000111011
00100000010100000111111
00100000010100000110000
00100000110110000000000
00000000000000000000000
00111000001000000000000
00111010100010101010101
00111000000000101010100
00000000000000101000000
00000000111110000000000
00000011111111100000000
00001110000000111000000
00011000000000001100000
00110100000000010110000
01100110000000110011000
01000101000001010001000
01000100100010010001000
00000100010100010000000
00000100001000010000000
00000100000000010000000
00000001001010000000000
01111001111101001111000”
– The actual Arecibo Message, 1974

Dubstep producers are often strict and rigid creatively. To satisfy market demands for the burgeoning electronic genre, many producers continually make what essentially amounts to the same track over and over again. Almost every Benga track amounts to little more than a few bleeps ornamenting a massive warp bassline, while most Burial songs are a downplayed beat and sparse gangsta samples smothered by a warm blanket of field recordings and faint ambience. Make no mistake, I like Burial a lot, and Benga has his time and place, but for someone lumped into the dubstep category, Boxcutter has very little in common with the big names in the genre.

Born in Northern Ireland with the name Barry Lynn, Boxcutter’s third full-length displays a laundry list of honest electronic influences. Although frequently graced by lounging Irie half-time beats, often utilized as a launching pad for bent genre experimentation, Arecibo Message picks up where 2007’s Glyphic left off. Lynn continues to channel certain dubstep motifs into sweeping excursions that touch on hyper-intelligent forms of house, breaks, hip-hop, electro, and jungle. No matter how easy it may be to dance to, how many somewhat typical club sounds and moderately cheesy vocals enter the fray, the results are unerringly IDM.

“Free House Acid” features a recognizable dub stutter beat during its intro, which fades into an unsettling melodic progression that carries the bulk of the track. This melody, though structurally stable, flitters through a continual evolution of filters and tweaks for the entirety of its existence, occasionally settling on a 303 acid sound that matches the somewhere between breaks and house beat. The sophistication of Lynn’s programming demonstrated here is leagues beyond industry standard capabilities.

For good measure, the bass in “Otherside Remix (Earth Is My Spaceship)” is just as phat as anything Benga has ever made, while the opening “Sidetrak” is as warehouse minimal as anything on Burial’s Untrue. Boxcutter’s mammoth bass counterpoints a consistent plethora of meticulously arranged twinkling delicacies so intricate that it makes Ghost in the Shell 2 look like a stick figure flipbook. At the very least, the man deserves to be bigger than Skream.

Showing off further complexity, “Mya Rave v2” takes us back to the early ‘90s trance ‘n’ bass sound of Acen, complete with the squeaky vocals and over-the-top epic synth lead. “Lamp Post Funk” blasts off to space disco land. It probably wouldn’t sound out of place on Squarepusher’s Just a Souvenir, somewhere between the first four tracks. “Kab 28” gets my vote for album highlight, starting off on evaporating sluggish percussion before the drums start slamming, the subbase starts warping, and the most delicate, crystalline synth line forges the track into proper jazzy drum and bass, the likes of which London Electricity has been toying with for years without ever quite breaking through to the other side.

Boxcutter’s 2006 debut Oneiric stuck hard to the Wikipedia definition of the dubstep formula. He opened up his palette a bit for Glyphic the next year, and that progression is fully embraced and articulated on his latest. Yet, no matter how far Arecibo Message gets out there, it still sounds like a Boxcutter record. Lynn is not overextending himself to achieve his impressive variety. He makes it sound so easy that it has to be an innate knack born in him, and finally being refined to an inimitable skill exclusive to himself. Make no mistake, Arecibo Message is one of the year’s best electronic records, sure to please weekend warriors and dedicated aficionados alike.

Rating: