Whaaaaaaat the fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck?  Listen, if you've heard IDM, you've probably heard all the tempo shifts and complex programming swarms.   Thankfully, it all tends to be pretty damn good since it takes skill to write this shit properly.  But we're past the point of being surprised, or so it seems until you pop this kind of shit in.  Cheezface has been playing around the fringes of the underground drinking it up and trashing people's houses in the middle of nowhere.  This appears to be his first CD release, and judging by some earlier material, he's come a long way.  If you're interested in dense, complex soundscapes with a crazy amount of weirdness and depth, this is probably exactly what you're after.

Circumstantial Pestilence, features artwork from Lou Rusconi that appears to reference plague art and weird symbolism from the Dark Ages.  Cheezface is riding on top of a starving horse with various diseased figures around, and the rest of the art features dismembered heads, corpses vomiting on diseased girls, and an army of computers attacking people.  That pretty much sums up the musical onslaught you're going to find here.  Maybe you've heard a lot of this shit before, from the classic weirdness of Aphex Twin to the blistering complexity of Xanopticon, but you're really not going to be prepared for Cheezface.

In comparison to earlier work, Circumstantial Pestilence is noticeably darker, with an ambient intro that sounds like you're submersed in sewage drain.  By track two, however, it's clear this dude is fucking with you.  Abrupt tempo changes and stops come out of the calm darkness without warning, mixing in live drums that literally sound retarded.  Retarded in the best way possible.  Like an autistic child who's forte is music that messes with your sense of order.  Just when you're nabbing a line, he suddenly snaps in with odd cymbal cuts followed by strings and well-placed samples.  Instead of the death metal filler approach, they're chosen carefully to add a further layer to the sound.  For example, in "Don't Look a Duct Ape in the Mouth", eerie echos of children chanting slowly lead into a retarded drumming onslaught with an effects-ridden power drill and frenetic screams that suddenly stops as the sample "What the shit?!" comes out of nowhere, and then it goes into it all over again, to eventually end with someone pissing.  Apparently that's likely, because the press release indicates hundreds of hours were spent collecting source material from public restrooms.

Circumstantial Pestilence covers a gamut of song styles, so it's not easily, and not a good idea, to put it into any category.  You'll even be treated to some techno pop at times, but the background material keeps reminding you this isn't your typical electronic.  It's clear a lot of time went into this and Cheezface knows what he's doing.  Turn shit up like "Bathtub Floater" and you won't just hear the bass, you're going to fucking feel it altering your heart beat.  The final track is a five-part opus that features a ton of surprises.  One of the great things about this album is that even after several listens you'll somehow find something new.  Concentrate on a different sound layer, and your mind will start to dig into odd samples that throw off what's on the surface.  Circumstantial Pestilence really only suffers from being kind of short, but then again this kind of music is probably best in smaller doses and with the $5 price tag you really can't beat it.  All around great release.

Official Site

Written by Arkus

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