JOE BARTEL "ISOSCELES KRAMER II" REVIEW
This review includes excerpts of our interview with Joe Bartel. You can watch the full interview on Patreon!
“I don’t think it interferes with any of the things I do to have different-genre releases under my belt,” says Minneapolis’s resident folk-punker Joe Bartel, idly dispensing sage punk wisdom over a decent-quality Skype call one October night. “People always want to pin bands and musicians to genres. But it’s like, I don’t think artists have to have genres.” We’re talking about his new EP Isosceles Kramer II, the latest in Joe’s series of explorations away from acoustic fist-in-the-air punk and into moody, textural, dark synth music. And even without any lyrics, the social commentary is still there. “Inside every punk are two wolves,” Joe continues. “There’s the folk-punk wolf and the electronic synth-punk wolf, and it depends on which one you feed.”
Isosceles Kramer II comes out swinging with “Orgone Accumulator”, whose squelching bassline and irresistible beat get things off to a deliciously dark start. The relentless bass combines with sinister samples of digitally slowed speech and pitched down laughter to give the impression of being lured into a murky nightclub with a dangerous secret lurking just around the corner, and serves as an excellent introduction to the EP’s moody, bass-heavy sonic palette. “It’s definitely meant to be a hard punch right out of the gate,” says Joe. “Just make you grind your teeth in anticipation.”
The bass gets turned up even more on the following track “The Common Ruin of the Contending Class”, which bombards the listener with a rapidly arpeggiated bassline over skittering beats that sound like something out of a Flying Lotus record. A distorted ranting voice warns about looming economic catastrophe over a stack of fuzzed-out, sizzling synth pads in a moment that feels like it could be a chase scene in a dystopian film.
And this isn’t the only time that the music on Isosceles Kramer II reaches cinematic levels. The closing track, “No Future”, is a fittingly bleak swan song. The searing bass and sinister ambience that makes up most of the EP is swapped out here for muted, ice cold chimes that guide the listener through a hazy, mournful melody that patiently builds in intensity before fading out. The haunting tones on this song feel like a cyberpunk funeral march, and conjure images of long abandoned, static-filled screens finally shutting down for good. “I always envisioned it as like, this is the last fossil fuel being burned, or something. The last drop of oil being drilled out of the ground and then put into your car and then you turn on the engine,” says Joe, clearly enjoying my shocked laughter. “And then you close the garage door. That’s basically what this song is.”
If it hasn’t been made adequately clear by now, darkness lurks everywhere on Isosceles Kramer II, usually bubbling through a tasty dance beat or hanging resigned in the atmosphere during the EP’s more subdued, cinematic moments. A track where the void bursts through any previous barriers and reveals its hideous form to the listener is the ominous “In the Mouth”. This short but effective highlight consists of a skeletal beat that sneaks around an industrial-sized revving synth tone that lunges out louder and louder at the listener, like some ancient malevolent intelligence just noticed you existed and is coming in for a closer look at you. Eerie, subliminal off-color tones lurk in the corners, creating an unsettling effect as the distorted tones reach a violently noisy climax, shredding your speakers and possibly your sanity. “That song is like if you were being swallowed by a massive, Lovecraftian, eldritch creature that was also the universe itself,” muses Joe, maybe a little too casually. “You kind of have to come through on the other side and reckon with what comes next.”
This review includes excerpts of our interview with Joe Bartel. You can watch the full interview on Patreon!
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Review and interview by: Dan DeMarco, Writer @itsadmiralfox
Edited by: Andrew Perrizo, Owner @PlaylistTC
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