Black Dice make some of the most fucked-up, psychotic music I’ve ever heard. At its core, Repo is industrial noise for the disconsolate. Or Black Dice are just taking the piss. One of the two. It’s almost incredulous to think that this is the fifth studio album for this Brooklyn trio, which just goes to show that there’s no accounting for taste. Let’s get it straight, you’re probably not going to like this album if your favourite album is something by Coldplay.
No, this is the sonic equivalent of a visual artist’s sketchings. Frequently unlistenable, Repo makes me wonder what Karlheinz Stockhausen would have thought to it. It is truly avant-garde and I fail to see how it is, in any sense, fully formed. Perhaps my brain is geared to chords, modes and, y’know – melody!
Bypassing any preconceived notions of ‘music’, Black Dice mash layers of sound together creating a textured impression of sampled beats and noise. Of course, my whole problem with this is: what determines this as art? Is it enough to say that because this audio collage exists and challenges the perception of music, it is art? No – using the technology available today, this album could have been thrown together within the very shortest of timespans. But, props to the team for being able to listen to it while making it: listening to Repo caused me to furrow my brow so deep, it could be rendered permanently fertile.
There’s little point in me choosing any of these abstract pieces to critique as they’re all as bizarre as eachother. They’re either going to float your boat or sink your ship. For me, this is supreme art wank, and anyone forcing me to hear it again will get themselves killed in the process. I’d rather listen to Coldplay. What does that tell you?