A multi-instrumentalist, producer and visual artist based in the remote Northern Australian region of Arnhem Land, Kris Keogh is most likely known to many Cyclic Defrost readers for his outings as Blastcorp, though more recently he’s released more ambient material with his Processed Harp Works and also explored shoegaze / indie rock territory with his band Red Plum & Snow. As the moniker suggests, this download-only EP under his new Laptop Destroyer alias ‘303’ represents a considerably more menacing beast, though often not in the ways that you might first expect. The four tracks collected here see Keogh using only a single Devilfish-modded Roland TB303 to create sounds that are often abrasive, and yet curiously calming at the same time. Indeed, it’s curious just how hectic and urgent a lot of this material feels, even in the complete absence of beats.
‘Devilfish One’ opens proceedings with slow rhythmically cycling surges of distorted 303 bass that seem to get more grainy and distressed as the track develops, the constant cycling repetition inducing an atmosphere that’s as meditative as it is unsettling. By contrast, ‘Devilfish Two’ sends some of the most slowed down and reverbed-out acid squelches you’ve ever heard splashing back and forth between the speakers as the tension steadily builds like an angry hornet’s nest and the bass tones get filtered out into showers of sparks. ‘Devilfish Three’ meanwhile sees flickering glitchy textures introducing a stray hint of an arrhythmic pulse against fuzzed out, thudding cyborgian bass tones and ricocheting filtered noise bursts, before ‘Rave Headache’ finally sees skipping, garage-centred beats making an appearance alongside sudden bursts of DSP-effects and elastic 303 squiggles as things get contorted all over the place, dancehall style. A decidedly eccentric EP that’s well worth seeking out.
