Black Dice – Broken Ear Record
(Astralwerks/DFA)

Noise is probably the most subjective genre of music. What one person will find entirely annoying, another will find intriguing. The famous Japanese noise artist Merzbow sums it up pretty well: “If by noise you mean uncomfortable sound, then pop music is noise to me.”

I can honestly say I appreciate Black Dice more than I like them. They’re a challenge, which I am willing to accept. But not everyone likes a challenge, especially big time record executives. I will never understand how this group of noise makers managed to follow in the footsteps of such acts as The Boredoms, striking up a major label record deal with seemingly infinite creative control. I picture the front of a fancy nightclub, with a line up of respected guests slowly making their way in. There’s The Rapture, and LCD Soundsystem… then, following closely behind, avoiding eye contact with the bouncer, is Black Dice hoping that nobody notices. Either the label execs didn’t realize what they were getting into, or they pretended to ‘get it’. Well I can assure you the average mall shopping consumer will not get it. Luckily I have no personal investment in whether or not this album succeeds or fails financially, so let’s just get to the music.

Broken Ear Record is not as much of a departure from Black Dice’s usual noise-scapes as you would imagine. I’m sure purists and hardcore fans may disagree and play the ‘major label debut’ card, but I have to say that any signs of gears shifting towards popular accessibility are pretty much absent. The electronic equivalent of a cold chill, album opener “Snarly Yowl” combines bare synthetic percussion with bleeps and blips. Sounds usually heard from a piece of malfunctioning equipment; a sometimes hard to swallow massive load of liquid noise. Throughout the album, horribly disfigured guitars seem to be replaced by slightly less offensive electronics. Seemingly trying to create their own version of electro-pop, Black Dice replace the ‘pop’ with gasoline and subsequently light it on fire.

I find myself listening to this album as a whole rather then on a song by song basis. As a soundtrack, I can imagine listening to Broken Ear Record while installing an air conditioner, or doing some sort of work with freon. It mixes the prehistoric with the futuristic, sounding both old and new. “Motorcycle”’s tribal rythms sound as if they were recorded at a giant bonfire as the band circled the flames, beating their instruments. The harder you listen, the more likely you’ll miss the music hidden behind the layers of experimentation. Case in point, the beautiful guitars buried four minutes into “Street Dude”, hidden behind static, almost creating a subliminal melody to what is otherwise minimalistic controlled noise.

Casual listening is where this album shines. But if you’re not willing to work with them, Black Dice are more then happy to pass you by and continue on doing what they do best, challenging their listeners. — Jay C.

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