w̢ĕ a̜r̮͖᷇̽e᷁̄ ͏a͈ḇ͆s̬᷀ẗr̈a̼͛c̄̽͊t̛͉̃ s͜p᷀͊ͦeͭ͌᷀̐ē̥ͦḍͧ ̻a͠nͥd͏̸ ͅṣ̼o̜u͙͡n̓d̆

//d/o/w/n/l/o/a/d//

// n e w   r e l e a s e s //

BLOC

Armored is the first EP in the RETCON project by DC-based producer and music educator Daniel Rhode, and the follow-up to last year’s aggressive techno two-tracker PLUS/MINUS. 

An innovator in the realm of hybrid electroacoustic composition, RETCON embraces intense rhythmic phasing schemes against stretched and mangled vocal and orchestral samples. Armored is an alchemization of mathy industrial beats and reverberant deep-ambient landscapes, optimized for car stereo consumption on road trips through immense environments.

ARMORED EP

RETCON – armored [from 'ARMORED EP']

In his debut recording on slashsound, Canadian-born, Atlanta-raised, and Brooklyn-based sound/visual artist Phong Tran deploys an impressive arsenal of homegrown software synthesizers to explore the forces of sacrifice and reflection, as they appear on the brink of major life changes. A protégé of Bang on a Can co-founder Michael Gordon, Tran balances meticulous structures and forms with frenetic emotive energy. 

Initiate [noun ih-nish-ee-it] takes its formal inspiration from the narrative arc of Joseph Campbell’s Hero with a Thousand Faces, and tells the story within every story in a 35-minute program of immersive industrial sound design, zero-to-sixty instrumental builds, and constantly breaking tides of melody and polyrhythm. 

“A lot of people in my life were facing new challenges,” the composer explains of the concept behind Initiate, which is at once deeply personal and universally relatable, “both of my sisters were now becoming mothers, new friendships were forming, and older ones were becoming distant. We all work through the dilemma of how we bridge the life we led previously and the life that’s waiting for us afterwards”.

Initiate

Phong Tran – Navel (from INITIATE)

[full album] i-vt.bandcamp.com/album/bloc 

blends of rhythmic rudiments from Chicago footwork, barrelling momentum of industrial techno, and reverberant grunge of freakatone.

This sonic thesis, inquiring into the experiments and techniques taught at the UPA Ghost Program, is a complex array of tangled rhythms, swarming drones, transforming vocal cuts and distorted melodies that hit deep on a sound system.

IVT – BLOC

[full album] i-vt.bandcamp.com/album/bloc 

This sonic thesis, inquiring into the experiments and techniques taught at the UPA Ghost Program, is a complex array of tangled rhythms, swarming drones, transforming vocal cuts and distorted melodies that hit deep on a sound system.

IVT – ARC ETHER (A-0 Remix)

procedurally-generated freedom
deconstruction/synthesis
cofounder @slashsound

IVT – ARC ETHER (A-0 Remix)

francis cuthbert