Secret Mommy – VeryRec (Power Shovel Audio)

Vancouver-based Andy Dixon (aka Secret Mommy) has previously released albums through Orthlong Musork and his own Ache Records label, and this latest effort on Japanese imprint Power Shovel Audio takes its title from the conceptual theme Dixon has developed it around – namely sports and recreational activities. With an approach that mirrors Matthew Herbert’s thematic sampling explorations such as “Plat Du Jour’, Dixon has drawn upon field recordings from a variety of different recreational venues including dojos, weights rooms and even a childrens’ daycare centre. Amassing a large sample library that includes tennis balls being struck, ice skaters gliding on a rink and dancers learning to tap, he’s then stuck the results through all manner of complicated digital processing and editing, reshaping the sounds of martial artists practicing into spastically-twitching breakbeats and house in a manner that certainly calls to mind “Hangable Auto Bulb’ tweaked-out trickery on more than a few occasions. Perhaps a closer comparison still in terms of similar producers would be The Rip-Off Artist, with the scrunched-up sampling of Dixon attempting to play a trombone for the first time on “Music Room’ particularly calling to mind his pranksterism involving toys and sonically-mutilated instruments. Extremely impressive on its own conceptual level, but not perhaps an album you’re likely to return to time and time again.