I remember hearing a previous Holzkopf release years ago, and thinking it was noisy, discordant and occasionally reminiscent of some of the best stuff released on DHR in the late '90s. I haven't really been following this guy's work, but here's a new cd-r from him all of a sudden.

So yes, there is still a bit of a discordant noisy vibe to this (the closest DHR comparison would probably be Shizuo, but that's still nowhere near what this sounds like), but there's definitely more of a "creepy guy with echoey voice" than I remembered, and while it's not anything close to approaching normal dance music, it's definitely a lot more rhythmic and structured than I was expecting. The opening track, "Draw Blood", could pass for Wolf Eyes attempting electroclash. Most of the tracks actually manage to strike a pretty impressive balance between basic, even cheesy rhythmic patterns (Casios!) and discordant off-time clatter and noise. It even manages to get funky (sort of) a bunch of times. The album loses a bit of steam towards the end when it tries to move away from beats and rhythms, but it moves back to that in the last few tracks. Indeed, thank god for soft times and hard beats! 7/10 -- Paul Simpson (22 October, 2008)