- Experimental techno and underground rap collide.
- As an artist and sound designer, Nino Pedone hovers on the more ghastly peripheries of experimental techno, noise and extreme computer music. After years of deconstructed club experiments as Shapednoise, Pedone's life completely changed when he temporarily lost his hearing. Absurd Matter was inspired by this horrific, anxious period, pulling together two of his most prominent influences—harsh noise and underground rap—in an amalgamation of intense, guttural, bass-heavy sounds unlike anything he's done yet.
"Weighty!" has the closest thing to a build-up and drop that Pedone's multiverse allows for. Swathes of noise wrap their way around dissonant drums, like thorns on a steely metallic vine. "Swash" plods along in a discordant trance, while "Metal" features guitar played by James Kelly, AKA WIFE—it's in there somewhere within the walls of industrial clang and cacophonous percussion.
Pedone has previously collaborated with nonconformist artists like Nazar and Slikback, with hyperreal results. On Absurd Matter, he assembles an impressive team of producers and vocalists who share his visceral approach: Moor Mother, Brodinski, Zelooperz and, most strikingly, Armand Hammer. The New York rap duo lean right into Pedone's abrasive, textural soundscapes on "Family," the record's crossover moment, but also its most unsettling one. Rhapsodising about coughing into bloody handkerchiefs and the late MF Doom, Billy Woods and Elucid tell a disturbing but vague tale: "The family farm, we sold it / The family plot had to go, so we backhoed the graves open / The farm next to us folded / The family farm was stolen."
Rap lyrics enrich Pedone's abstract productionss with personality and meaning. Moor Mother's fierce chorus—"Who, me? / You can't cancel me," paired with Pedone's formidable trap-influenced sound design, is chilling. Chopped and screwed lyrics from Detroit-based rapper ZelooperZ take centre stage on "Know Yourself," a short yet sprawling cut featuring guest production from French producer Brodinski.
If you lift the veil on Absurd Matter, what you actually hear is a love letter to some of Pedone's truest inspirations. He transplants musical styles on this album with the precision of a surgeon. But there's also a certain spooky quality to it. The short "Intro" features Dean Hurley, one of David Lynch's longstanding sound collaborators, a formidable co-sign setting a Twin Peaks-esque tone for what's to come. At times, Absurd Matter is brilliant, elsewhere it sounds like it might combust into flames at any second. Sharp, industrious, dissonant, ambitious—with Shapednoise it's best to expect the unexpected. It comes with the territory.
Tracklist01. Intro feat. Dean Hurley
02. Family feat. Armand Hammer
03. Know Yourself feat. Brodinski & Zelooperz
04. Swash
05. Savage Mindedness
06. Weighty!
07. Poetry feat. Moor Mother
08. Metal
09. Twisted Skills
10. Outro